


a lot of life behind us.

by silhouette (thiefless)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aged-Up Peter Parker, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Female Peter Parker, Panic Attacks, Protective Tony Stark, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiefless/pseuds/silhouette
Summary: Mr. Stark greeted her with a smile: wide and bright and not at all intimidating. “So. Spider-Man, right?”“Um.” Eloquence eluded her. “No?”Or: Tony recruits a slightly older and more disillusioned Spider-Man duringCivil War.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 86
Kudos: 327





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya guys! :) I'm back with another multi-chaptered Tony/fem!Peter AU. Fem!Peter is named Peta (I've grown weirdly fond of that name.). 
> 
> This is a _Civil War_ AU that leads up to IW but it does differ from canon. Peta is also aged up, so she is 18 at the start of this fic. I've also borrowed most of her backstory from Spider-Man comics and films (like Gwen Stacy's opening monologue, which is from TASM2). She's kind of a weird female version of various Peter Parker and Spider-Man media. 
> 
> Anyway. I'm rambling too much. I'll let the story speak for itself. I hope you guys enjoy it! :)

_It’s easy to feel hopeful on a beautiful day like today, but there will be dark days ahead of us too, and there’ll be days where you feel all alone –_ _and that’s when hope is needed most._

_Keep it alive._

~ Gwen Stacy

* * *

Before, if you asked Peta who she was she would tell you, hand on heart, that she was a photographer. Bit of a strange personality trait, she knew – especially when considering the fact that she was deep into her freshman year at MIT. Nevertheless, it was her shining feature. 

Now, a lot of people would argue that science and art didn’t mix; couldn’t mix; should never mix. Not when one’s existence directly juxtaposed the other: an imperfectly perfect balance. Peta would disagree with that assessment, vehemently. Au contraire, art depicted the answers to the questions several iterations of scientific development posited. Technical theories and concepts – subjects of life, death, meaning – manifested in a litany of colour, of ink blots splattering an intricate cacophony of failed suppositions and imagined ideologies. 

And photography, well. What was it if not a demonstration in halting the flow of time? Just the practical application of the B-theory of time. 

In many ways, the slew of time was what inspired Peta to pursue a life in science. The urge to master time; to become acquainted with all its deep, dark secrets, and all the little nooks and crannies in which they hid. To be able to hold it in her hand – to solidify a concept greater than herself, and mould it into a tangible substance that could obey commands. 

Except, spoiler alert: time didn’t work like that. Peta had been the unlucky recipient of _that_ particular experiment far, far too many times. The ambition of a child unaccustomed to a world in which life didn’t always will out no longer drove her. 

For a while – for quite a long while, actually – her motivation had come courtesy of Spider-Man. Apparently, being bitten by a radioactive spider at the tender age of fourteen was conducive to becoming a budding scientist. At this current juncture, her expertise was limited to chemistry. Her web fluid formula was perhaps the only thing she had going for her. She was pretty good at tinkering with computers, and building TV sets from scraps found at the bottom of dumpsters – she even made a pretty penny from those designs – and she considered herself to be sufficient at hacking, so long as she had her trusty Guy in the Chair double-checking her work. It was safe to say that Spider-Man appeased her scientific curiosity, dominating her every waking thought.

It wasn’t just her inner geek that was sated by her freak accident. The whole point of being a superhero was that you got super-cool superpowers, and Peta was no exception. She was crazy strong, weirdly fast and freakishly sticky – a hat-trick. Plus, all her senses were dialled to eleven. Literally, absolutely everything was enhanced.

Including her memory. Where it had once been fallible, susceptible to fatigue and prone to unreliability, it was now built and reconfigured like a supercomputer; her capacity for total recollection was off the charts.

Throughout her brief tenure as a glorified vigilante, Peta documented Spider-Man’s achievements with her loyal camera, selling the photos to a newspaper that actively despised her for a hot dollar. But Peta… her mind recorded everything else with frightening clarity. All the things she never sold to the _Daily Bugle,_ all the pain and suffering that came with being a superhero, Peta remembered. Couldn’t stop remembering. Her body was failing her.

All the death – she remembered. It was too much. Too much to put on one person; too much power entrusted to nothing but a symbol; too much goddamn responsibility. 

So, she quit. Shortly before high school graduation, in fact. After the final fight against Green Goblin, after her final victory was dampened by grief– she retired. She was done labouring under the misconception that _she_ could be a hero. Spider-Man’s legacy would forever be immortalised as one of failure and devastation, with an overly-saturated dosage of hubris to boot. Ultimately, she was doing more harm than good.

College provided a welcome respite. Majoring in Chemistry and Biology meant that she had little time to dissect her shortcomings, and it kept her mind sharp and scientific. Just the way she liked it. No time for reminiscing on the photography of her youth when confronted with the Principles of Inorganic Chemistry.

Ned managed to fudge the system so they could share a dorm on campus. Peta needed her Guy in the Chair, with or without Spider-Man. It made for some awkward manoeuvring on instances when Ned brought Betty back to their place, but they made it work. Peta didn’t know how else she’d make it through college without her best friend.

Especially because everyone around her kept falling to pieces. 

(Every time, it was harder and harder to pretend the lies the _Daily Bugle_ still printed didn’t cut her to the bone.)

Graduating from Midtown had been a whirlwind of confetti and speeches and tears. Mr. Harrington gave each of the decathlon members a pamphlet on how to survive in the ‘real world’, his eyes suspiciously moist. Even Flash carried less of his usual scorn, though he did make it a point to knock her into her locker one final time. 

_Stay safe, Penis,_ had been his parting words. It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her, and far more than she deserved.

One day, she’d find a way to look at herself in the mirror. To memorise every inch of her face – from the tired brown hue of her iris all the way down to the dejected downturn of her lips – and find a way to live with that image. 

But not yet.

Not yet.

* * *

Peta Parker had retired from life as a superhero for a grand total of three hundred and eleven days, twelve hours and thirty-three minutes – give or take – before Mr. Stark approached her. 

It was after his generous September Foundation presentation – and Peta would like it proudly noted that she was the first one on her feet to applaud her larger-than-life idol. One of her professors had taken her aside as she and Ned had been about to file out of the lecture hall for her 11am class on Biochemical Transformations II, whispering that _The_ Tony Stark had personally requested her. 

Well, at first she had been elated, ecstatic even – her celebrity hero, handpicking _her_ – and then her heart sank right to the soles of her feet for surely Mr. Stark didn’t want Peta Parker; he wanted Spider-Man. And she would have to disappoint him. 

She bumped into his research assistant as she weaved throughout the crowd, following the professor as if she were being led to the execution block. She didn’t get the guy’s name, although she _did_ catch the tail end of what had all the hallmarks of being a particularly impressive rant about the name B.A.R.F. and how ‘utterly disgraceful’ it was to waste such ground-breaking technology on something as ‘pitiful as therapy’ (“ _As though Stark needed any more!_ ”) – to clarify, those were his words; definitely not Peta’s. In any case, she didn’t have much time to dwell on the dude’s angry mutterings, nor contemplate his apparent disdain for the man behind the tin can, before she was standing face to face with Tony freakin’ Stark.

They were the only two in one of the adjacent lab rooms, and thankfully they were alone. All that rowdy chatter leftover from Mr. Stark’s presentation threatened to give her a killer migraine. Plus, she had a funny feeling that what prompted Iron Man to seek her was best said in private quarters.

And, lo and behold, it was.

Mr. Stark greeted her with a smile: wide and bright and not at all intimidating. “So. Spider-Man, right?”

“Um.” Eloquence eluded her. “No?”

He quirked a brow at her telegraphic reply, mirth dancing in those dark brown eyes. “Is that a question?”

“No.”

“Hm.” He clicked his tongue. “You’re a woman of few words, aren’t you, kid?”

Peta bit her lip. “What, um, do you want me to say?”

“How ‘bout the truth?”

At his expectant expression, she wilted. “I’m not Spider-Man,” she said, stubborn preservation instincts urging her to _deny, deny, deny._ “I’m afraid you have the wrong person, sir. Isn’t he Spider- _Man?”_ See, Peta knew what she was doing when she branded her alter-ego as a man. 

Mr. Stark folded his arms, blatantly unimpressed. “You really are a terrible liar.”

The sad thing was: he didn’t get it. Peta wasn’t lying. 

“I’m not Spider-Man,” she told him with as much conviction as she could muster. The truth in her tone caused her idol to falter.

In her humble, unbiased opinion, it was all going really well -- no: _exceptionally_ well. Mr. Stark was truly believing her white little half-truths. Right up until he nudged open the secret panel along the corner of the wall, and her crumpled, discarded Spider suit tumbled out, incriminating her.

“You know, way back when, this was where I used to stash all the alcohol.” Mr. Stark’s incisors glinted in the clinical light as he picked up her suit and the vial of web fluid that went with it. “But hiding a bargain-basement superhero suit works too.”

Now, _this_ would be a brilliant time for one of Peta’s quick-fire lies to save her ass. Unfortunately, however, the best she could do in this unprecedented scenario was open and close her mouth several times like a fish out of water. “I have no idea what that is, or how it got that.”

“Yeah, no. You know who I am. I know everything.”

Well, this was just terrific.

Abandoning her lie to a cruel, merciless death, Peta sputtered: “I haven’t been– I mean, I wasn’t trying to– I’m _not_ Spider-Man. Like, at all.” Not any more.

“Uh huh,” Mr. Stark nodded, an air of indulgence lacing his response. “So, what? You relocate to Massachusetts now? Fight the crime in Cambridge in your spare time?”

Peta shook her head, emphatic in her denial. “No. _This,_ ” she gestured to the symbol of who she once was; who she could never be again, “is just precautionary. Just in case, y’know? I haven’t used it since–”

“Last summer. Right?” he asked as if he hadn’t already known.

Peta ducked her head, her silence voicing the misdemeanours she dare not admit in the cold, hard light of day.

Thankfully, Mr. Stark took note of her discomfort, and he did not press the matter. Instead, he held her web fluid, analysing it beneath his microscopic gaze. “You know what I think is really cool?” he told her. “This webbing. I haven’t been able to reverse engineer it – nobody has, for that matter. You must have been, what, fourteen when you created it?”

She shifted, uncomfortable at the focus on her most prized invention, yet struggling to contain her giddy pleasure at the fact that _Iron Man_ was actually praising _her_ work. “Yeah. Fourteen, yeah.”

Mr. Stark whistled, low. “Gotta admit, kid, that’s real impressive. Have you patented it yet? You could be making a fortune from this stuff. From a business standpoint, Stark Industries would be dying to get their hands on this stuff. I’ll pay generously for it.”

Peta swallowed down the magnitude at what he was offering her. “No. Thank you, but– It's not for sale.”

“I can respect that,” he said, and handed her back her creation. 

At this current point in time, Peta was desperately freaking out. Her brain had overloaded, having reached max capacity for revelations somewhere at _So. Spider-Man, right?_ She needed to regain control of this narrative.

With that thought in mind, she interjected, “Um. Mr. Stark? How long have you assumed, or guessed, that I could maybe, _theoretically_ , be the, um, Web-head?”

Amusement leaked through Mr. Stark’s voice: “You mean, how long have I known that you were Spider-Man? Since the Battle of New York. That must have been early days for you, huh, kid?”

 _Fabulous,_ Peta’s mind sighed. Since the very beginning then.

“Have to tell you,” he continued, blissfully unaware of her crisis, “you really earned that moniker – _the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man._ Did you really think I wouldn’t notice a budding superhero playing in my sandpit?”

Peta had never really considered the plausibility of such an event. Naively, she was under the impression that she would never be found out for who she was on the inside. 

Look at her now.

“You were good. That day.” Mr. Stark coughed, seemingly tense at giving her a compliment. “In New York.”

It was a sweet gesture – empty, but sweet all the same. His words were a cloying honey, buttering up her achievements, and lavishing Spider-Man with undeserved praise. The whole thing just rang _false._

“I really wasn’t.” She waved her hands nondescript. “You guys did all the hard work. I just helped out Search and Rescue when it was all over.” From the very start, Spider-Man’s ethos had been founded upon the silent suffering of the everyday man. _The little guys_ , as it were. Their stories had struck a chord in her, solidifying her need to protect her home. It took a while to gain her bearings; to gain traction as a ‘budding superhero’, to coin Mr. Stark’s term; to carve out a nice little spider-shaped hole where she could operate – but she got there. While the Avengers were looking ahead, Spider-Man kept her head to the ground.

(And look where it got her.)

Dread coiled low in her gut as a sudden spike of a thought crept up on her. “Does everyone know who I am?”

“No,” Mr. Stark was quick to refute, blanket truth enshrouding his words. “I kept S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers off your radar.”

Mr. Stark’s answer stole her breath away. Like a running gag, Peta didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She didn’t have the first clue as to how to begin to process that information. Mr. Stark apparently had her back? All those years believing she was so smart for having kept her identity under wraps, and for doing it all alone, and now Mr. Stark had just flipped the little script she had written in her head and informed her that she was never really on her own.

It was– a lot. Just, a lot to take in.

Mr. Stark cast a rueful half-smile, mistaking her facial features for distrust. “Don’t believe me?”

“No, I just. Why? Why would you keep my secret?”

_Crucially: what was his price?_

Cocking his head, he replied, “I didn’t think you’d want a super-secret spy organisation to know the ins and outs of your private life.”

That wasn’t really an answer. Certainly not one Peta was satisfied with. 

Whatever his reasons were, Mr. Stark refused to show his hand. “Why’d you stop?” he asked instead. “You were a hero–”

“No, I wasn’t,” she interrupted, mannerless. The words flew out, harsh and discordant, and she instantly wanted to retract them; a silent noose tightening around her neck. The air was running out. “I wasn’t a hero. I thought I was, thought I could be, but. I was only kidding myself.”

“What happened?” Mr. Stark inquired after a beat, uncharacteristically gentle. It was a highly invasive question, one that got her hackles up, until she caught the pleading look in his eyes – the one that said he needed to hear her answer just a fraction as much as she needed to give it.

“I lost a friend.”

Mr. Stark looked down, eyes flitting back to the remnants of her past identity. Digesting her answer behind those glasses. 

However, whatever turn the conservation was about to undertake was cut short by the ring of Mr. Stark's phone. He withdrew it from his breast pocket, took one look at the caller ID, and was going to contort his mouth into a curse of some descript before he got it under control. He adorned a pinched expression, face looking like he'd swallowed a lemon, before regretfully concluding their unofficial meeting; an action that was altogether for the best, considering she was about a hair's breadth away from spilling her life secrets to this man who'd she admired from afar for so many years, longer than she wished to admit, and because her life was one gigantic fuckup after the other, and, really, Mr. Stark didn't need her spider-themed baggage on his plate. 

(Really!)

“Wait,” she called out while she still had him.

Mr. Stark pivoted on his heel, cocking his head at her command. The short, staccato twitch of his head disclosed his interest in her parting words. 

“If you need me,” she said. She had to say this; had to get this out, no matter her nerves. “If you ever need me, I'll come back.”

Mr. Stark bowed his head; a sign of respect. “I understand. I look forward to seeing what projects you come up with in the interim.” He smiled, teeth glinting like a promise. “Take care of yourself, kid.”

Peta returned it weakly. “You too, sir,” she said as he turned back. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how, just like that, Iron Man swooped in, and irrevocably changed the rules of the game. 

* * *

Later saw Peta thoroughly interrogated. 

“Dude,” Ned hissed as soon as she stepped foot in their dorm. “How’d it go? What did Mr. Stark want?” He sucked in all the oxygen in the room. “Is he as handsome as he appears on stage?”

Peta laughed at his boundless enthusiasm.

“Give me a second to breathe here, Ned,” she said with a lightness she only had to partly fake.

As expected, though, his gusto could not be contained.

“Did you really speak to Mr. Stark? What did he want? Was it, you know, _spider-related?_ Wait– does that mean you’re gonna go back?”

Question of the hour.

Peta perched on the end of the bed, raking her fingers through her hair, explaining, “I don’t know, Ned. He didn’t want _me_ me, he wanted fake-me. He wanted the ghost of someone who doesn’t exist anymore.”

“ _Wow. Beautiful analogy. I didn’t know you secretly switched to poetry, dork. Hey, what’s the English department like at MIT?”_

Peta spun around, only just noticing MJ’s deadpan face illuminated on Ned’s old StarkPad. “Did you seriously call MJ about this?”

Ned was dumbfounded. “Uh, yeah,” he stated, as though it were obvious.

“ _Oh, please. I’m glad he did. I don’t know I’ve managed to survive this long without your melodramatic antics,”_ MJ teased, smirk widening comically on screen when Peta flipped her off.

“Way to keep this a secret, Ned,” Peta chastised, her complaint lacking any real fire.

“ _J_ _ust admit it, Peta. You need my help.”_

Peta scoffed. “I so do _not_ need your help.”

Ned and MJ’s reply was unanimous: “You so do.”

Heaving a dramatic sigh, Peta flopped backwards on the bed, and contemplated the merits of spontaneous human combustion. That sounded really good right about now.

“I don’t– I don’t even know how to–” Peta babbled, an urge to fill the stifling silence dominating her actions. “I don’t know what to do, and–”

To clarify a tad more articulately: Peta hadn’t even dared _think_ about anything even remotely pertaining to her spidery alter-ego – let alone debate her grand resurgence on the superhero scene.

_Yet._

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Emphatically: NO!

Spider-Man made mistake after mistake after _mistake_ – one more failure, and Peta would fracture, splinter into a thousand tiny pieces. No, she couldn’t take the risk. She just… couldn’t.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally settled on, staring up at the white of the ceiling. “Can we talk about something else?”

In the wake of Peta’s request, the only sound she could hear was her and Ned’s shared breathing, shared heartbeat. Then:

“ _Hey, Ned. How’s Betty?”_ MJ diverted without a single hitch; a flawless transition.

At Ned’s long-suffering moan, Peta allowed a grin to stretch her face as her eardrums reverberated with her friends’ bickering, and, for a single split-second, Peta was content to let her brain enter default mode network. She didn’t have to worry about civilians, or murdering carjackers, or just what exactly billionaire genius superheroes wanted with _her._ All she wanted to do was listen to her friends trade quips, and take solace in their company.

* * *

One month later, Mr. Stark came back to her with an ugly shiner painting his cheek, and a call to assemble.

The time for pleasantries had long since passed. Whatever had brought Iron Man knocking on the door of a retired superhero was deeply personal. 

“Nice room,” Mr. Stark said cordially, making himself at home in her dorm. Thank God Ned took the hint to leave the room, and leave her alone. 

With Iron Man. 

Repeat: Iron Man – _Tony Stark_ – in her college dorm. 

Peta didn't know what to do with her hands. “Thanks. Um. You, uh– nice eye,” she said because she was a goddamn _mess_ in front of her childhood hero. 

“Thanks,” he responded dryly. “Glad to have your approval on my latest fashion statement.” He gestured to the door Ned had made his hasty exit out of. “Think I gave your boyfriend a heart attack?” he joked, though it was lacking his usual TV-charm persona.

“Oh– no. Ned’s not my– he’s not– we’re not–” she stuttered incoherently, vocal chords refusing to cooperate at the shock of seeing Mr. Stark in the flesh. _Again._ “He knows my identity, so it made sense for us to live together. He’s just my Guy in the–”

Mr. Stark waved a nondescript hand, eyebrow arching at her babbling jumble of mess. “Yeah, we don’t need to start a conversation,” he said – a paragon of blatant indifference.

Peta choked back a wince. 

“Listen,” Mr. Stark said, redirecting the narrative: assertive. “When I was here last, you said if I had a need for you, you would come back.” He paused, allowing her time to digest his words. “I need to know if you meant that.”

“I.” Well, now, _that_ was the question, wasn’t it? _Was_ she ready? “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“Good,” he said, a note of relief shading his tone. He punctuated the monosyllable with a decisive nod. “Because I need your help.” There was a profound look engraved on Mr. Stark's handsome features. Empathy, perhaps, for their shared suffering. 

He pressed a button on his StarkWatch. Files upon files of information flooded her room, videos of Vienna and James Buchanen Barnes and the Accords; of the Winter Soldier kicking everyone’s ass, Mr. Stark’s included. 

And the Secretary of State’s ultimatum: the rogue Avengers or Mr. Stark in a prison cell.

Essentially, Peta was the last point of call; Mr. Stark’s very last resort. Was it wrong that a tiny part of her was a little… disappointed about that – even though she had voluntarily taken herself out of the game?

Probably.

Nevertheless, Mr. Stark was here, and he did need her, and Peta couldn’t– wouldn’t refuse. Not now, or ever. That was always her weakness: her incessant need to _fix,_ even when it would be best to leave well alone. _Especially_ when she should leave well alone.

God, Peta hated her flaws.

Mr. Stark extended his arms horizontally. “Any questions?”

 _Oh, only about a million._ “Um, yeah. Why– why me?”

“Because while we’re all flying about, generally acting like we’re too cool for school, you’re out there pulling burning buildings off of people.”

Now Peta was lost. “Are we talking about the Battle of New York again?” 

A shadow eclipsed Mr. Stark’s handsome face at the mention of the first battle the Avengers’ fought as a team – so brief that Peta had to rely on her senses to catch it. After a beat, he smiled and the darkness receded minutely. “Well, that, and you have an uncanny ability to get yourself out of tough spots. I could use some of that.”

Peta wanted nothing more than to aspirate Mr. Stark’s praise, his reverence, at face value: to breath it in, to inflate her lungs and dispel the necrotising guilt that ate her alive. To imbue her with a sense of purpose. Rekindle the fire.

Still, she hesitated, stifling the impulse to accept his plea.

 _Help_ _me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope._

Except: there was a reason why ol’ Ben Kenobi spent nineteen long years in exile – and it wasn’t just to nurture the future hero. 

Reading her reluctance, Mr. Stark resorted to trying to entice her: “I have an upgrade or five waiting for you if you accept.”

Her knee jerk reaction was to refuse his offer, because… “The last time a billionaire offered me help, he became a supervillain and wanted me dead.” Several times, in fact. 

A beat. 

“I'm sorry, did you just compare me to Norman Osborn?” Mr. Stark's tone was nothing short of indignant, repulsed at the mere thought of being anything like the original Green Goblin. 

The thought made her relax somewhat. 

“Have to say, kid,” Mr. Stark added, tone light. “I’m offended.”

Peta smiled weakly.

“There's a flight leaving for Berlin in ten minutes,” Iron Man announced out of left field, casual in the way you would be were you discussing the weather. “If you do decide to take up the mantle, now would be an amazingly good time to tell me.”

Peta's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “ _Now?”_ Stupidly, she'd hoped to have a few hours, if not days, to decide. But, she guessed, that's what happened when you entertained famous billionaire superheroes. You rotated on _their_ schedule, worked around _their_ clock. 

Mr. Stark nodded, allowing her a pocket of time to grasp exactly what going back meant. 

Maybe– it was time. Time to dust off those cobwebs on her suit and get back into the responsibility she couldn’t live without. To reclaim her Spider-Man persona after her near-year-long hiatus. To boldly go where no man has gone before–

(Wait. Pause. This wasn’t the _Starship Enterprise._ Apologies.)

Whatever. Point was: Peta could _do this._ Mind over matter, and all that.

Accepting this, though, didn’t make her Mr. Stark’s puppet. She was making a choice of her own accord; she was picking a side.

 _Mr. Stark’s_ side.

Team Iron Man.

“I'm not going to join the Avengers,” was the reply she said to an expectant Mr. Stark.

“Did I invite you to join the Avengers?” The tension hovering in his face dissipated somewhat at her tentative acceptance, and her resolve solidified in return. 

At the end of the day, she'd carved her choice in stone the second she painted a spider on a red-and-blue hoodie and masqueraded as a superhero. What the hell? Maybe it was time to get back on the ol' horse. 

Peta could do this. 

She _had_ this.

(...right?)

* * *

Mr. Stark vanished into thin air shortly after she agreed to fight for his cause. He left instructions that she should pack for a couple days (“I’ll clear it with MIT. I don’t know if you know, but they kind of worship me there.”) as soon as she could, and that she should wait for someone to pick her up. Mr. Stark’s driver must have been a clairvoyant or something, since he arrived literally a second after she did. 

“Get in, kid,” he said. He took her small amount of luggage and put it in the trunk, and she took a seat in the back of a car that seemed ludicrously expensive. She’d seen the man once before – at the opening commencement ceremony of the 2010 Stark Expo. Back then, he had just been Mr. Stark’s overly-stressed bodyguard, towing him away from the crowd eagerly awaiting his attention. Peta included. She did manage to nab Iron Man’s coveted signature before he was whisked away, so. That was something. 

Yes, she did have it in a frame in her childhood room. Shut up. 

But Peta wasn’t just a no-name fan, and Mr. Stark’s bodyguard wasn’t his bodyguard anymore. 

Back to the present: onward they two embarked, driving to the tune of bustling Cambridge traffic. Mr. Stark’s former bodyguard was as expressionless as he’d been when she caught a glimpse of him all those years ago. Prominent stress lines still marked his face. Maybe some things didn’t change, after all. 

Maybe, deep down, Peta was still that plucky young kid desperately seeking praise from her idol. 

Nope. She wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, she looked out of the window at the real, ordinary, mundane life muddling about out there, and sought to master the power of positive thinking. Regrettably, she failed that task. Pessimism was hardwired into her genetically mutated DNA.

In a pitiful attempt to quiet the doubts raging in her head, Peta desperately tried averting her internal monologue to something a little more light-hearted and less guilt-inducing. She thought of Captain America and how his team of rogues, vigilantes like how Peta always imagined herself to be – and, out of nowhere, she started chuckling. Softly at first, growing loud and boisterous the more she fed it. 

“Kid?” questioned Mr. Stark’s bodyguard-turned-chauffeur – _Happy,_ if she remembered the name correctly – gruffly. “You okay?”

Peta clamped her lips shut, stifling the unwarranted laughter. Unluckily for her, she had a predisposition towards it. 

“Yeah,” she said, smile still prominent in her tone. “Captain America did these PSAs while I was in high school – _Rappin’ with Cap_ , they called ‘em – telling us that we should behave appropriately and within the law, not break any rules and all that. It’s ironic, isn’t it?”

No response. Hm. Peta would have to try a different angle.

“Mr. Stark called you Happy earlier,” she hedged. “Is that a nickname? Are you–?” Peta’s smile turned awkward. “Are you a happy kind of guy?”

Through the rear-view mirror, Happy fixed her with what she guessed was his signature look: bone-deep weariness belying a distinct _lack_ of happiness. 

“So that would be a no,” she whispered, mostly to herself. To Happy, she sympathised: “Sarcastic nicknames are the worst. This kid in my high school used to call me Penis. Like– I was _Penis Parker._ He thought it was the height of comedy.”

“Kid,” Happy interjected her babbling nonsense with the same brand of his earlier brusqueness. “I prefer to drive in silence. You understand?”

Peta’s heart plummeted. “Yeah, no. I love silence. Can’t get enough silence. If you ask me, there isn’t enough silence in the world.” Semantic satiation rendered the word _silence_ temporarily meaningless to her ears. 

Happy didn’t bother replying.

For the record, she tried. She really, really did. In fact, she lasted ten whole seconds – her new personal best. What could she say? Neurosis was her middle name. Especially when under duress. 

“It’s just, I hate awkward silences, you know. And I feel that this is now a little awkward. Do you find it a little awkward?” Crap. Talking about how awkward this was did not magically make it any less awkward. _Way to go, Parker._ “Not that it’s you. It is _not_ you. If anything–” great, she was about to word-vomit the age-old breakup speech; she apologised in advance– “it’s me, and _not_ you. Right?”

Peta’s only response was the sharp click of a button, and, without further ado, the screen between them closed.

That went well. 

Not long after, they arrived at their destination. Peta gave Happy a hand with her baggage – “I’m kind of known for my strength.” – and then she turned, stopped, faltered at the knowledge that:

“We’re going on a plane?”

Condescension laced Happy’s face. “Yes. How else did you think we were going to Berlin? Unless you want to swing on over there?”

Nervous laughter once again bubbled in her throat. “Yeah, no. I, uh, I’ve never been on a plane.” _But her parents had._

“How did you get from New York to Cambridge without flying?” Happy asked, bewildered. It was the most emotion he’d expressed all day.

“Public transport,” she explained helplessly. “Lots and lots of public transport.”

Awkward sympathy flared on the man’s face. Peta’s hackles rose at the sight, and she swallowed back her fear. She didn’t need his pity. 

Shaking her head to banish her old anxiety, she chased on after her professional babysitter. “Just a plane. Just a plane. Just a plane,” she repeated like a mantra, summoning the greatest, fakest smile known to man. “Planes are fun. Love p-planes. Plus, even if there was a fault, for whatever reason, at least we’ll die quick, right?”

Happy shot her a weird look. Peta had not delved too far out of the realm of reality to not notice that she was being weird again. 

She promptly took her seat. This would be a long flight. 

* * *

Peta breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Stark’s private jet touched down on solid ground. She and Happy once again got into a really conveniently placed car, and drove to a beautiful five-star hotel. 

“Follow me, kid,” Happy said.

The hotel was intimidatingly grandiose – not a place someone like Peta had ever frequented. At all. Happy checked them in while Peta checked out their surroundings. Before then, she had never taken much stock in the whole ‘fish out of water’ idiom, but there really was no other way to describe her ingrained hesitance. Brandishing a key – electronic, because apparently getting a key cut required too much effort for these technological folk – Happy showed her to her room. 

“Rooms,” he corrected. 

Ah, right. She was a one-time guest in a billionaire lifestyle. Rooms. Plural.

_Fish out of water, indeed._

All through the day and night she spent in that hotel, figuring out how to order room service and finding out that her rooms were far bigger than she ever thought possible, Peta felt like an imposter. The staff that knocked on her door – fussing with the bed, delivering food, making happy small talk – must have known that she was an intruder; an outsider. That she didn’t belong there: in a rich man’s world, playing superhero while the world crumbled around them. 

Her sleep that night was filled with harsh admonishments that couldn’t even scratch the surface of what she deserved.

* * *

In her room, in a suitcase, in the grandest hotel in the world, Mr. Stark left a superhero suit for her. 

_A minor upgrade – T.S._

She flipped the lid. Instantly, a gorgeous variant of her iconic Spider-Man suit popped open in all its red-and-blue glory – sleek in a way her own would never be, battered and war-torn as it was. In direct contrast, the Stark suit was magnificently majestic. Worthy of a true superhero.

Peta wasn’t a true superhero, and this was too much for her to bear; too much for her to carry. 

The ambiguous price tag on such a piece made her feel a little nauseous. Okay, a _lot_ nauseous. Of course, she knew Mr. Stark was a bona fide multi-billionaire, but for her to wear something on her flesh that could easily be enough for Aunt May to comfortably retire on alone made her squeamish. Invisible strings attached themselves to the seams, and if she wore this, they would tie Peta to Mr. Stark and whatever remained of the Avengers. Forever. 

Peta turned it down. 

* * *

When the time came to debrief with the rest of Team Iron Man, Peta headed out in her old Spider-Man suit. She’d spent the past day tinkering and repairing and upgrading as best she could – making sure her vocal modulator was working, making sure her web shooters hadn’t decayed from misuse, making sure her vials contained enough web fluid. Basically making sure every last detail was in immaculate, tip-top shape. 

Happy knocked on her door. “Get up, kid,” he ordered and she complied, wiping the sleep from her eyes and dashing about as fast as a human-arachnid hybrid could go. 

Buckle up, folks. This was going to be an _eventful_ day. 

Slipping back into her spider skin was second nature. The easy familiarity was startling, and her old complacency threatened to overwhelm her. Unsurprisingly, though, she was more than a little nervous – Spider-Man was essentially auditioning for the Avengers. Her performance had to be ground-breaking. 

Not that she wanted the Avengers gig. No, that was an ideal fourteen-year-old Peta yearned for. And then she grew up – jaded and cynical, though she may be. At this point, did she even deserve to call herself a superhero?

According to J. Jonah Jameson: absolutely _not._ Which. Thank God he wasn’t there. Peta would never hear the end of that particular news article. 

Anyway. She was going off on a tangent. She had to focus. 

“C’mon, kid. They’re waiting.”

_They._

Happy led her down a labyrinth of elaborate hallways; a bizarre, random journey. Peta didn’t miss the fact that not a single member of staff ventured wherever the hell Happy was guiding her to. They came to a stop outside an imposing looking door and, jerking a nod, Happy nonverbally prodded her to enter. 

Peta inhaled, forcibly held the air captive in her lungs until she had her heart rate back within normal limits, exhaled, and then followed him into the room – The Room. The Room with heroes Peta had placed on gigantic pedestals for the better part of her life. 

War Machine was theore, some dude called Black Panther, the mysterious android Vision, the frightening Black Widow, another arachnid that very well might give Peta a run for her money, and Mr. Stark. Greetings were hasty, and Peta realised that she was the only one there who hadn’t already been introduced. 

“Woah, you managed to nab Spider-Man?” Colonel Rhodes asked Mr. Stark, as though she were nothing more than a rare commodity. “I thought he disappeared after the fight with Green Goblin.”

Peta bowed. “And yet, here I am,” she retorted, unable to entirely reign in Spider-Man’s trademark sarcasm. The mention of her old foe was enough to flood her system with ice. 

Colonel Rhodes had the good grace to look sheepish. “Sorry, kid.” Which– what was with everyone calling her _kid?_ She was eighteen. Spider _-Man._ What part of that screamed _kid_ to these other heroes?

 _Kid_ denoted innocence, naivety, purity – attributes Peta no longer possessed; would never possess again. 

Mr. Stark waved a hand, commandeering the conversation in his standard cavalier nature, laying out the law of the land. He instructed the others to attack only when deemed absolutely necessary, and only on the condition that all other avenues were no longer possible. 

He nodded at Peta. “Kid, if things start getting dicey out there, you’re on web duty.”

Peta mock saluted. “10-4.”

Black Panther didn’t speak all that much, Vision conversed only in short, cryptic sentences, Colonel Rhodes was friendly, Black Widow was intense, and Mr. Stark was stressed – a winning combination if ever she’d seen one. 

Maybe she needed to dial back the sarcasm a little more. 

When all other players were primed for action, Mr. Stark asked Peta to hang back. “You’re not wearing the suit,” he surmised, deceptively neutral. 

“I–No.” She just wasn’t willing to trade the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ of superhero suits for Mr. Starks’ super fancy iteration. 

“You don’t trust me?”

Peta paused. “I don’t trust anyone.”

At that, Mr. Stark graced her with his attention, dark eyes roaming her masked face. “Smart,” he noted, a rueful upturn of the lips. He handed her a high-tech earpiece. “Wear this.”

She tested it out, lifting her mask up and placing it in her ear. “Wow,” she exclaimed when what she could only assume was an A.I. started talking to her. 

“That’s F.R.I.D.A.Y., my A.I. She’ll get you up to speed, make sure you stay connected to the rest of us. Don’t worry,” he added just as she opened her mouth, “the earpiece is attuned to your voice modulator. Nobody will hear your real voice, kid, I promise.”

Stark relief shot through her. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

He dismissed her gratitude, swatting it away like a pesky fly. Wasn't that _her_ job? “No need to thank me.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go get these sons of bitches,” he said, too nonchalant to be genuine. 

Peta chased after him, hot on his heels, splitting to the side and awaiting his signal.

_You got this, Spider-Man._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the start! :) Thank you for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you come with me now, you’ll be on record,” Mr. Stark warned once he regained his composure, eyes boring into Peta’s masked ones. “You won’t be able to go back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and kudos! :) I cannot express how much they meant to me. 
> 
> Here is the next chapter. I was originally going to just kind of skim the events of _Civil War_ , but then I kind of ended up...writing them instead? So, long story short, this is kind of a Peta in _Civil War_ chapter, with some differences.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! :)

Strange: that was the sum total of Peta’s first impressions. Working with and alongside the Avengers – well, half the Avengers – fighting beside them, listening to their evolved shorthand, it was all foreign to her. Alien. For years, the only thing Peta had to rely on was the sound of her own voice, the internal whirring of a plethora of thoughts and opinions that whizzed inside her skull. Now, she was expected to share her thought processes, to work in tandem with these other heroes, heroes who deserved the mantle far more than she ever did. Her achievements became their achievements, and so forth. 

Her failure became their failure. 

Therefore: she couldn’t fail. 

The pressure she placed on herself was insurmountable, overwhelming, but nothing she hadn’t done a million times before in far worse situations. 

Besides, Mr. Stark literally referred to her as _Underoos!_ in front of everyone present. Yeah, her first costume majorly sucked, but she’d come a long way since then. She wasn’t fourteen any more; she knew what the hell she was doing now – read: she knew all about what _responsibility_ meant. Mr. Stark’s sobriquet was more than a little humiliating, like she was just some little kid meandering around in underwear, and maybe he didn’t mean it to be, but regardless she was determined to prove him wrong. She would take his _Underoos_ and use it as incentive to prove her worth. Her pride demanded that much. 

Still. Getting to steal Captain America’s shield made up for it. Until some tiny dude suddenly maximised beside her, socking her clean in the jaw, Spidey Sense warning her when it was already a done deal. 

So, she was a little rusty. Time to shake it off. 

The heated discussion dissolved into chaos; separating into factions – friend versus friend, foe verses foe. _I shouldn’t be here,_ Peta thought, unbidden. _I don’t belong here._

Team Captain America started when they realised Spider-Man had come out of presumed retirement, but the novelty of finally facing the wall-crawler wore off pretty fast. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tricked her as soon as she took her eye off the ball, so that was great. Captain Rogers was another beast entirely. _Queens,_ he dubbed her – a nicer nickname than _Underoos._ He dumped a landing platform on her.

In spite of all that, Peta remained steadfast. Spider-Man did not come out of hiding just to have her ass handed to her. Renewing her subscription to the task at hand, Peta joined Iron Man and War Machine in tackling the greatest giant known to man. 

With a clever intertextual reference to _The Empire Strikes Back,_ Peta was responsible for the two metal men tag-teaming to take down Giant-Man. Unfortunately, she was too slow on the draw, and she was inadvertently backhanded out of swing. 

Peta froze where she lay, playing dead until the threat was contained – an inherent spider trait. It’d been a long while since she’d last been in a super-powered brawl, and she hadn’t the strength to deny her instincts. She was out of practice, and you know what they say about old habits. 

Iron Man landed beside her. “Kid?” A cold, metal hand touched her shoulder, and Peta started – Green Goblin, Doc Ock, the Lizard, all of them flashed in her mind, tumbling together. Adrenaline coursed through her bloodstream, lighting up the radiation coded into her DNA. Peta lashed out, no grace or technique behind her jerky, panicky movements. 

“Hey, kid! It’s just me. Same side.”

Peta blinked. The face of Tony Stark glitched in her vision, flickering; settling. Her face flushed in her mask. This– this– this _phony_ wasn’t who _The Amazing Spider-Man_ was. She did not cower from a fight; she did not lie and await someone to rescue her. Peta did the rescuing. 

Correction: Peta _did_ do the rescuing. 

What the hell had she turned into?

(Maybe _Underoos_ was an apt nickname, after all.)

“Mr. Stark–”

“Yeah, hi,” he grinned, sharp. “You’re _done._ ”

“What? No, I’m fine.” She pushed through the pain, ribs protesting all the while. 

“I’m benching you. You’ve been benched.”

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I’m just out of practice. I’m good to go, really.”

“Yeah, no,” he reiterated. “You’re done.”

_That’s not your call to make,_ she thought angrily, irritation aimed primarily at herself for her poor form. Spider-Man used to be _amazing._ She was nothing but a shadow, a silhouette, of her former glory. Spider-Man had wasted away, atrophied, withered away into nothing, until the only thing left was Peta fuckin’ Parker. Useless. 

Mr. Stark grew bored. He flipped his mask back on and took to the skies, leaving her a pile of discarded limbs on the ground below. 

See? Useless.

In order to survive, Spider-Man needed to be divorced from the prison cell Peta Parker represented. But she lacked the ability and the skills to disentangle the two entities. 

Peta looked up at the sky Mr. Stark just vanished into – and then she saw it: Vision’s miscalculation; his gross lapse in judgement. 

The Falcon expertly dodged the beam of light Vision threatened him with, executing a flawless manoeuvre Peta herself had performed several times. Vision clipped the War Machine armour, and–

And then he was _falling._

Peta dissociated, body and soul exiting in awful melancholy. Instead, they went here:

Gwen. The George Washington Bridge. The race against time. Lifeless body pleading for a saviour that would never come. Arms outstretched, fingers splayed, the web still attached to her ankle – the remnant of Peta’s negligence. Green Goblin’s manic cackle playing on repeat. Gwen with her eyes closed, unconscious, no comprehension of what her fate would entail. Forever unconscious. _Snap!_ as the human neck shattered under the weight of Peta’s hubris. 

At least Colonel Rhodes had the War Machine exoskeleton, for all the good it did him. The force of his crash-landing caked the ground in dirt; Peta could feel the vibrations all the way over at Leipzig airport. 

Her lungs refused to cooperate with her. 

The world started spinning – an intricate tune in _adagio_ sharpening reality’s harsh lines. Colonel Rhodes’ diminishing heartbeat the only thing her senses honed in on. 

In a faraway, dream-like sequence, Peta could only watch as Iron Man landed beside his fallen friend, watched the Falcon abandon the fight to glide to a stop next to them. Mr. Stark hurled a repulsor beam, knocking him unconscious. F.R.I.D.A.Y. requested reinforcements. 

Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes did not look back. 

* * *

The journey to the Avengers compound was a sombre affair. On the quinjet, Colonel Rhodes – freshly emancipated from the ruins of the War Machine armour – was placed under direct medical supervision, Mr. Stark by his side. His injuries were analysed and assessed by a doctor, one Mr. Stark must have called on ahead for, flanked by a remorseful Vision. Natasha Romanoff was nowhere to be found. The same went for the Black Panther. 

Peta’s mind could not stay still in the present – instead, it flashed back to the past with every slow beat of Colonel Rhodes’ heart. Her mind was in shambles; in total disarray, reluctant to heal from a trauma Spider-Man was the root cause of. 

Silence asphyxiated the atmosphere, and Peta’s breath did not come easy. The air was full of mites – terrible, gnawing parasites that sucked every inch of benevolence and optimism and amity out of them. Not a single person was immune. Everybody was infected, contagious. Quarantine was their only hope. 

Peta had never thought to see herself inside the notorious Avengers compound. Under different circumstances – before Gwen, before her hiatus, before this Clash of the Avengers – it would have been a wondrous occasion; intoxicating. As it was, Peta couldn’t even trust herself to conjure up a façade; not for this. 

The doctor that tendered to Colonel Rhodes’ life-threatening spinal fractures quickly but safely ushered his unconscious body into some kind of high-tech MRI. Peta trailed on after, a few paces behind the rest of them. 

The scan was proficient: L4 through S1 were shattered; irreversible. Paralysed. 

Mr. Stark disappeared into thin air, leaving possibly to stew on the news. Vision stood, a stoic vigil outside Colonel Rhodes’ medical bed; a resplendent image of haunting agony. The snapshot was heartbreakingly similar – Peta had been the person with the good intentions, with a friend who paid the price for her error. 

Running on intuition alone, she approached him. “You okay?”

He turned to appraise her, and her heart broke at what was written on his face. “I made a mistake.”

“Congratulations,” she found herself saying, commiserating. She placed what she hoped was a soothing hand on his shoulder. “You’re human.” Fallibility was their trade. 

Vision quirked his lips, bitter-sweet. Peta couldn’t look at it for long. “All my life, I wished to understand humanity; to understand what it truly meant to be human.” His smile turned to sorrow before her very eyes. “I don’t think I like it.”

Peta’s mouth dried. “I don’t think anyone does,” she managed to croak.

Vision tilted his head – a wordless agreement of her supposition. 

That was the extent of her support. She had nothing left to give. 

She rose on unsteady legs, enhanced senses filtering out the inconvenient background noise, focusing on Mr. Stark’s conversation with Black Widow. 

_How did she even get here?_ she wanted to ask. The answer was obvious: duh! Super spy.

Anyway. That was irrelevant. What _was_ relevant was the contents of their tense tête-à-tête – specifically, the indicative lack of trust on both sides. Agent Romanoff soon departed, leaving Mr. Stark defenceless, raging; an island left adrift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, ice rapidly approaching on all sides, closing the ranks around him.

Peta couldn’t fix the past. Hell, she couldn’t even afford a Band-Aid to patch the bulletwound. What she could do, though, was stand by his side. Yes, Peta put on a big display of incompetence back at Leipzig, but she would make it up to him. She _wanted_ to make it up to him. Nobody deserved to be deserted, left to capsize under the weight of their misdeeds. 

Peta edged closer to where Mr. Stark held himself – a tragic Greek figure. She heard F.R.I.D.A.Y. recount the true version of events: Barnes was innocent all along.

“How much of that did you hear?” Mr. Stark inquired when she got close enough, forgoing any semblance of preamble, blatant exhaustion permeating the stresses of the syllables. 

“Enough.”

Mr. Stark exhaled, harsh. “Sorry to have dragged you over to the side of the villains, kid.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Stark, you didn’t drag me anywhere. I made a choice.” And she was still making it. “So. When do we leave?”

Mr. Stark’s best man was facing almost certain paralysis, Black Widow defected, there was a glitch in Vision’s matrix. Mr. Stark was completely and utterly alienated. 

Good thing Spider-Man was built on looking out for the little guys.

Mr. Stark’s eyes widened fractionally at her implication. She was almost offended. Did he really anticipate her hasty exit too?

(Actually, considering all that had transpired over the past few hours: probably.)

“If you come with me now, you’ll be on record,” Mr. Stark warned once he regained his composure, eyes boring into Peta’s masked ones. “You won’t be able to go back.”

Peta took a moment to recognise the enormity of what she was about to do. With this daring, foolhardy move, Spider-Man wouldn’t just be back; he would never be allowed to leave again. This went way beyond a simple resurrection. 

But she also knew that she would never be able to live with her decision if she left Mr. Stark to ward off the vultures himself. 

Her choice cemented in her head. 

_With great power–_

“I know,” she said in Spider-Man’s boyish resonance. “I’m coming with you.”

_–comes great responsibility._

* * *

Secretary Ross looked like the type of person who would ask you for a favour, and then compile a multi-bullet-pointed list examining the myriad of ways you screwed it up. 

In Peta’s learned opinion, that was. 

Even so, Mr. Stark appeared to agree with her cognitive assessment. 

“Introductions.” Mr. Stark gestured to Peta with his good hand, the other hidden in a sling. “This is Charlotte. Charlotte, meet _Kiss of the Spider-Woman.”_ Peta had never seen that film, but the imagery alone sent a wave of revulsion shooting straight through her. 

Ross was unimpressed. “Charlotte?” He turned to her. “What’s your real name?”

Spider-Man stared him down. “Tess.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Tickles.”

Ross maintained his humourless stance. Beside her, Mr. Stark’s grin infused her with a heady rush. Hurrah! Spider-Man’s powers of wit were still intact. Mostly.

“I suppose you think that’s funny. You do realise it’s against the law to give a false name when questioned.”

Mr. Stark sighed. “You missed the point of the joke entirely, buttercup.”

A muscle in the Secretary’s forehead twitched. Consequently, Peta’s lips twitched _. Domino effect in action._

“You’re lucky you’re not in one of these cells,” Ross retorted, merciless. His eyes flickered to where she stood. “Both of you.”

Mr. Stark maintained a superb poker face in light of Ross’ threat. Peta’s...could use some work. Luckily, she had Spider-Man to hide behind. 

“Spider-Man over here,” Mr. Stark said, redirecting the conversation seamlessly, “has expressed a keen interest in signing the Accords. I believe it would be beneficial to have a kind of trial run before throwing him into the deep end. Like an internship, of sorts.”

Ross mulled over his proposition, and Peta stifled the urge to fidget while he did so. Mr. Stark excelled in preserving his level-head with a disposition Peta could only dream of. 

Their ruse was such that, while Ross would be busy sorting out the terms and conditions of her ‘internship’ with the Avengers, Mr. Stark would swallow his pride and ask the Falcon for Captain America’s location.

“Last chance to back out, kid,” Mr. Stark had said before they exited the jet, giving her one final out. “You don't have to do this, and I'm not going to think any less of you if you don't. I know I'm asking a lot.”

Nerves crawled like spiders on her flesh, yet she managed an affirmative, “I'm good to go.”

Mr. Stark's expression had been indiscernible. Nevertheless, he opened the door, and the remaining members of Team Iron Man set out. Throwing caution to the wind, she headed down the rabbit hole with Mr. Stark. 

Back to the present: Peta could see the cogs whirl around in Ross' head. “Fine,” he declared after a brief pause for consideration. “Spider-Man, come with me. And you, Stark – see if you can get these rogues to start talking.”

With that, Mr. Stark and Peta parted ways. Spider-Man imitated Iron Man's composure to the best of her ability, and let herself be escorted by the man responsible for drafting the Sokovia Accords.

See, while Spider-Man hashing out details of joining the Avengers was conceived as part of their ploy, it wasn't a total red herring. Yes, she would be kind of joining the Avengers – however, she did draw the line at actually signing the Accords, and having her true name out there for the public to gawk at. She would just, you know, only have one foot in the door. She'd be little more than an intern, operating under the direct supervision of the Avengers. 

And Peta would go back to Queens. Spider-Man would return home.

The world needed superheroes now more than ever, with the splintering that had just happened. Leipzig had given her a taste of the life she swore she had left behind – the scene she promised meant nothing to her anymore. But that was a lie; she was hooked, addicted once more, and she had been a fool to imagine that she could resist the pull indefinitely. The stage was hers. 

But it wouldn't be like... _last time._ Arrogance would not be her downfall; she wouldn't be doing it alone. She would have the Avengers to monitor her, make sure she didn't make any more catastrophic mistakes. Because they were in the business of saving lives – like a doctor, or any type of medical professional – and, in order to do so, they had to learn and practice and make sure they were doing more good than bad. She needed boundaries. 

As transcribed in the Hippocratic Oath: _First, do no harm._

So. When she was ready to graduate from student to professional, she would sign the Accords in writing. 

Ross led her into a quiet room to hash out the terms and conditions of her temporary superhero membership. He sat down at a table, gesturing for her to follow suit. She did. 

_I'm not going to join the Avengers._

_Did I invite you to join the Avengers?_

Desperation had been Mr. Stark's motivation for recruiting her to begin with. Desperation was now her inspiration for going back on her word. What a pair they were. Peta's defiance barely survived forty-eight hours before dying a miserable, painful death. 

“How long will you be envisioning this internship lasting?”

“Uh, I don't really have an expiration date in mind,” she said, thinking on her feet. “A couple years maybe?”

He sighed, irritated. “And how many hours will you devote to your activities?”

“I don't know,” she repeated like an idiot. Shit, she really should've planned this out beforehand. She wouldn't flunk out of MIT, not after she'd worked her ass off just to get there. Maybe she'd become a Cambridge superhero. Although, that would narrow down her identity to those who sought to unmask her. Fuck. This was a conundrum. 

One thing to note about Secretary Ross: he was not a patient man. “Could you try to know?”

“I can…” she pulled out of her ass, “endeavour to inform the Avengers whenever I take to the streets?” Probably wasn't the answer he was hoping for, but it was all she had on her. 

“Well,” Ross said. “We'll table this discussion for now, and I will forward my decision to Stark. In the interim, you will refrain from carrying out any and all _Spider-Man_ duties. If this internship does come to fruition, you'll be operating under direct supervision of the Avengers,” he added, brusque. “You will report to them, and they will report to me. Understand?”

“One hundred percent understood,” Spider-Man said. 

Ross sighed at her casual remark, but otherwise let it slide. 

“Follow me.” He didn't wait for Peta to get up, expecting her footsteps to echo his. 

She did not disappoint him, itching to get away from this man. Something about him rubbed her up the wrong way; she couldn't explain it. 

They arrived in what Peta assumed was the security room, and Mr. Stark was in the middle of a conversation with an unenthusiastic Sam Wilson. In the neighbouring cells, Hawkeye was angrily pacing the length of his cell, muttering; a man Peta could only assume was behind Giant-Man was playing drums with his thighs; and– 

Peta's heart broke at the vision of Scarlet Witch: imprisoned in a straitjacket, treated as though she were a dangerous mastermind. 

Wanda Maximoff was the same age as Peta Parker.

All of a sudden, the feed went static. Ross nearly Hulked out. Peta's grin was masterfully concealed by her Spider-Man mask. 

“Get it back up!” Ross commanded. He spared a glance her way, and she leveled his accusatory stare. 

Thirty seconds later, the screen came back up, but Mr. Stark was gone. Her Spidey Sense tingled; she turned to the side, and there he was. 

“Come on,” he mouthed, ignoring Ross' incessant demands for information as they headed back to Mr. Stark's helicopter, primed and waiting for them. 

“Stark!” Ross called, hot on their heels. 

“Sorry, have to dash. Gotta give Ms. Tickles here a ride home.”

Agitation bled through his tone. “Did he give you anything on Rogers?”

“Nope, told me to go to hell. I'm going back to the compound instead, but you can call me anytime.” Peta hopped up on the helicopter, extending a hand to Mr. Stark. He didn't take it. “I'll put you on hold, I like to watch the line blink.”

Ross' permanent scowl was the complete opposite of a pretty sight. Thankfully, the doors shut before long, and they took off to the skies. 

“Did you get anything on them?” Peta asked once they were safely away from the Raft, unconsciously paralleling the Secretary's words. Her question was practically irrelevant; he was far too perky not to have gleaned information on Barnes and Rogers. 

“I meant what I said to Ross,” he said instead. “I'm taking you home.”

_Oh, hell to the no._ Mr. Stark did not drag her from the relative safety of MIT, hook her back on the superhero addiction, and then rip out the floorboards beneath her feet. No freakin’ way. 

Raising a brow, she gestured to his sling. “Oh, I'm sorry, are you just wearing that as a fashion statement? You can't fight two super-soldiers on your own. You need the assist.”

“I’m not the only injured party here,” he said pointedly. 

“I'm a human mutate.” She shrugged. “I heal fast.” Speaking of which, she was virtually healed.

Mr. Stark exhaled heavily through his nose. “I'm not going to be responsible for you. I can't.”

“I don't want you to be,” she retorted. “I am the only one here who is responsible for my _own_ choices, and I say: you're gonna need backup.”

Their eyes locked – Tony Stark on Spider-Man; Peta Parker on Mr. Stark. He couldn't read her through her guise, and she couldn't decode him through his own mask, fashioned from years batting away media-hungry mobsters. 

“I see they weren't wrong about your reputation,” he eventually said, cool and even. 

Confounded, Peta asked, “I have a reputation?” She wondered whether it was positive; _hoped._

Mr. Stark simply looked at her, nodded, all the while playing his cards extremely close to his chest; to his sternum where the scarred indent of the arc reactor lay. 

“Why do you do this?” he pondered, more so to himself yet Peta noticed the genuine interest. “What’s your MO?”

“Because,” she started, trying to describe her motivation as succinctly as she could. “When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and _then_ the bad things happen...they happen because of you.” Wasn't quite as succinct as she would have liked, but it got the job done. 

When she left that life behind a year ago, her reasoning was the same. Spider-Man was forfeit the second she made her collosal fuck-up. She was only now willing to slowly, meticulously crawl her way out of that spider-shaped hole.

Mr. Stark looked away, digesting her words; her justification for leading a uniquely unorthodox way of life. Perhaps, as he ruminated on their semantic value, he too was musing on his own conduct, his own incentive for manufacturing several dozen Iron Man suits. 

As soon as she believed she had escaped his piercing gaze, he turned back, scrutinising her. For a terrifying second, Peta feared he had unlocked the power of X-ray vision – seeing behind the suit to the person inside. 

“You're afraid,” he noted. 

Peta froze. “No, I'm not.”

His smile was grim. “You're afraid – afraid that you played this wrong, afraid that you picked the wrong side, afraid that your interference made everything a thousand times worse – and you're using humour to hide behind that fear.”

“No.” _Yes_. “I don't. I'm not.”

“Kid.” Mr. Stark fixed her with a firm look. “It's okay.” Then, a whispered admission on a long exhale, “I'm afraid, too.” He unwrapped his sling, cupping his injured wrist for a moment. 

Peta was at a loss for words. Yes, she was afraid – more afraid of failing now more than ever, knowing the catalogue of inadequacy littering her memoirs. However, like she recited: the onus was on Spider-Man to help. Plus, Peta really, really wanted to. 

(And that... might just one day ruin her.)

Peta clapped Spider-Man's hands. “So. How are we playing this? What do you need me to do?”

“Jump.”

Um. “You want me to–?”

“Jump.”

Hm. That sounded like an epically terrible choice. Like one of those of the _dumb ways to die_ from that YouTube video Ned was obsessed with a couple years back. 

“Did I just walk onto the set of _Titanic?_ ”

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. “It'll be fine,” he reassured her. It didn't do much to assuage her very reasonable concerns. “I'll catch you.”

Eyeing the arm he had just been cradling, she hesitated. 

Mr. Stark observed her pause, hand hovering over a button next to him. “You trust me?”

_Million-dollar_ _question_. 

“Yes,” she forced out, forced herself to push past her fear, her anxiety, forced herself to throw her body down into the sea below, trusting Mr. Stark to save her life.

Air bubbled around her, cushioning her fall as best as the molecules would allow, but it was too frail; too weak. The temperature difference was an instant shock to the system. Rain battered her visor, and she had just enough time to thank her lucky stars she had the hindsight at fifteen to equip her suit with waterproof materials, before she crashed. 

Straight into Iron Man's back. 

“Oof!” she exclaimed, lungs pushing the oxygen out of her body at the force. 

“Told you I'd catch you,” Mr. Stark said, amused. He allowed her to adjust her position, essentially piggy-backing off of him, and then he shot off, activating all four repulsors. 

Destination: Siberia.

* * *

Even for Peta's arachnid-induced cold-bloodedness, Siberia was cold. Freezing, almost. If she physically could shiver, she would be. 

Mr. Stark was unaffected by the temperature, safely ensconced within his red-and-gold tin suit. He landed gentle on the snow beside the bunker, waiting for her to hop off. 

“Good, right?” he asked, palpable smugness bleeding from him in droves.

Peta grinned so hard it was a wonder she hadn't moulded the Spider-Man mask. “ _Amazing._ ” She had no compunction about coming across like an over-eager fan. As far as she was concerned, she was and always would be Iron Man's #1 fan. 

...wow. Probably the cringiest thing she'd ever admitted, even to herself. Whatever. She was way past the point of denial; had swung right on by, in fact. 

Spider-Man accompanied Mr. Stark into the icy tundra they'd found themselves in before they froze to death, curbing her characteristic whimsical demeanour in favour of something a little more conservative. Apologies did best when delivered with honest sincerity – hindered by sarcasm. 

Hey, Spider-Man could be just as pragmatic as the rest of these guys if the situation called for it. She wasn't all giggles and wise-cracks. If she had to hazard a guess, she'd probably wager it was about 80% shits and giggles, and 20% matter-of-fact. What? Twenty percent was still a big deal. Just look at Mr. Stark. He probably had a huge gap. Peta could manage it. She didn't have, like, an addiction or anything. 

Fine, maybe she did. But there were worse things to be addicted to than hysterical comebacks. Peta had perfected the art of rejoinders, she'd have you know.

Anyway. Like she said, she was composing herself for this particular adventure. Captain America was one of her heroes, too, and she didn't exactly present herself in the best light back at Leipzig. Time to make amends. 

Mr. Stark sauntered on ahead through the dark and eerie ex-HYDRA base. Spider-Man did have a swagger, but she had a feeling Captain America wouldn't appreciate her bravado. It did border on arrogance. 

They found them soon enough. Spider-Man and Iron Man prised open the double doors at the end of the hall, and there Captain America and the Winter Soldier stood – shell-shocked. 

Mr. Stark withdrew his helmet. “You seem a little defensive.”

Captain America's eyes switched between the pair of them. “It's been a long day.”

The Winter Soldier refused to lower the gun. Captain America stared pointedly at her, body held cautious and wary. 

Captain Rogers appraised her approaching figure, something incomprehensible flashing in his blue eyes. “Queens.”

Peta extended the same calibre of greeting: “Brooklyn.”

“At ease, soldier,” Mr. Stark continued, a lightness even Peta could tell was forced. “We're not currently after you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Could be your story's not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way.” Leaning against the wall like many a high schooler, Mr. Stark jested, “Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself.”

Captain America's tentative smile felt like the very best reward. “Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork.”

Mr. Stark waved a dismissive hand in Peta's general direction after dispensing a quip about _Manchurian_ _candidate_. “Don't worry about him. Spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

Peta narrowed Spider-Man's eyes. “Nice one, Shell-head.”

Mr. Stark placed an armoured hand over the brilliant white of the arc reactor. “Kid, you wound me.”

Signalling his comrade to stand down, the Winter Soldier did so. Peta felt strangely self-conscious; she had no doubt that she would feel the super-soldier's unblinking stare watching her every move for days afterwards. Not a pleasant sensation. 

They headed into the heart of the decommissioned base, awaiting any manner of evil to strike them down. Mr. Stark stayed close to her – whether out of pity, or a bizarre presentation of guilt, she could not say. Maybe neither; maybe he simply trusted her judgement the most out of the three of them. 

_Unlikely._

Their common enemy did not make them wait long. 

Helmut Zemo, the puppet-master behind the scenes, unveiled his greatest deception: HYDRA's super-soldiers were murdered, butchered in their sleep at his command. Zemo used their star-power to draw them in, like pollen to a bee. 

Zemo played a video. 

_16_ _Декабрь_ _1991_

Mr. Stark knew that road. 

Peta'd read the news. She knew the significance of that road and this date; she knew what the combination _meant._

Judging by the grand unravelling of Zemo's master plan, and the anxious heartbeats of the two super-soldiers, she was not alone in her knowledge. 

Howard and Maria Stark's car crashed on a wintry road, enshrouded in darkness. That part wasn't news to Peta; it wasn't news to Mr. Stark. What _was_ news, however, was what happened after. 

Once upon a time, Peta became a crime-fighting spider to defend the innocent, protect those who were unable to help themselves, who were failed by the state. Uncle Ben's murder, and the horrifying realisation who was responsible for it, influenced Spider-Man's work. She became a vigilante because she couldn't bear this happening to other people's Uncle Bens. In the years that followed, she had lost her way a couple times, there was no denying that. But her motivation was always contingent on the life she failed to save. 

The way she understood it, Mr. Stark did not share the same coming-of-age superhero story. His parents' death broke him; not infused him with a sense of righteous justice, and he was only just comprehending the magnitude of his loss. The B.A.R.F. technology he spear-headed further illustrated that fact – the one thing he desired to rectify was his final conversation with Howard Stark. Even then: _“It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport...or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief.”_

Because he was still _grieving_. Even now, right at the very fractured nucleus of this atomic second, Mr. Stark was experiencing residual grief. 

And _now–_ now she feared there was nothing that could hope to stop him. Zemo's video had destroyed any semblance of coherence left in him. The Winter Soldier – _Sergeant_ _Barnes_ , as Howard clearly named him; recognised him – his actions shattered his heart. 

The lie Captain America withheld, voluntarily and without scruples, imploded his spirit, his kindness. Until he had left was the remnants of a man desperate to avenge. 

Mr. Stark attacked with a ferocity too fast for her Spidey Sense to relay. Distantly, her body warned her of Zemo's hasty exit, but her mind was preoccupied trying to keep a murder from occuring. Sergeant Barnes grappled with the might of Iron Man, Captain America frantically aiding his long-lost, while Peta– 

Froze. 

_“I_ _missed the part where that's my problem._ ”

Mr. Stark shoved a missile in Barnes' unprotected face, the Winter Soldier thrusting his arm away, narrowly missing the detonation. The rocket smacked into the side of the building; aflame. _Red._

Time halted. The tick of the clock slowed to a jarring halt. Peta felt every millisecond escape her. 

She had to pick a side. 

Captain America vs Iron Man. 

Mr. Stark or Steve Rogers. 

The foundations started to crumble around them, a casualty of war. Where they fought in mid-air, Mr. Stark and Sergeant Barnes were in the firing range. 

Spider-Man shifted into gear. She landed just in time to web the burning infrastructure before it crashed into the Iron Man armour and trapped Mr. Stark. She extended a hand to him; he took it this time. 

Twenty-five years – a quarter of a century – of unprocessed grief fueled Mr. Stark's actions, erupting with all the might of Vesuvius. Wretched fury painted Mr. Stark's face; Iron Man's angry slits and trademark scowl had never been so haunting.

Here she stood: at the heart of the conflict. In the thick of it. 

This wasn't Peta's first brush with vengeance. 

“Mr. Stark, please! Don't do this.”

Peta's pleas did not have a mitigating effect on Mr. Stark's rightful anger. If she were being honest, she didn't think they would. Still, she had to _try_ – even if her efforts were in vain. 

“Stay out of this, kid!” barked Mr. Stark, and before she knew what he was planning, he fired a repulsor from his unbroken hand at her webs, leaving her to catch it once more. Ash coated her red-and-blue suit. 

She freed herself within seconds, but by the time she rejoined the battle, Mr. Stark had once again blocked her entrance. Desperately finding another route through, Captain Rogers paid her no heed, concerned solely for the safety of his friend. 

Peta chased after him, trusting that he would find a way through. Together, they ran towards the source of the conflict only to see Iron Man poised to fire a kill shot point blank. 

Before she knew what was what, Captain America back-flipped in front of the Winter Soldier, shield deflecting the blast, ricocheting off and hitting Iron Man in the chest. 

Acting on pure instinct alone, Spider-Man leapt atop the blessed Saint. Steve, pulling him down, down, down to the murky depths below. She registered Captain America use the downward momentum she created to hook Mr. Stark down with them; his angry, pained grunt loud and clear in her mind. 

The Captain and herself landed on a panel lower than Mr. Stark's. He raised his shield, intending to throw it – and Peta entered her second fight with Captain America. Their techniques were both skewered, off-kilter, hampered by the fierce loyalty that drove them to protect their respective partners in crime.

(God. That was weird, referring to Mr. Stark as her _partner._ It probably wouldn't happen again.)

Peta didn't _want_ to do this; fight Captain America. What she wanted was to convince Mr. Stark to _please_ , _stop!_ before he did something he'd regret. And she knew, with every molecule inside her, that he would regret murdering James Buchanen Barnes in cold blood. Mr. Stark was a _good_ _man_. Revenge killing would not alleviate his misplaced guilt.

But that was the thing about vengeance, wasn't it? Ever such a fickle thing to get rid. It festered, poisoned, metastasised for good measure. It wasn't as simple as cutting it out. Peta wanted to explain this to Mr. Stark, to have even the tiniest fraction of a _chance_ to explain, but Captain Rogers was determined to restrain her efforts, firmly categorising her in the antagonist column.

Peta swallowed around the lump in her throat. Maybe she was. Except– 

She just wanted to be the person she wished she had back when she hunted Uncle Ben's killer through the streets of Queens. 

Fists swinging, their brawl faced a quick death when Captain America suddenly lunged at the descending Iron Man, the Winter Soldier held captive. The three of them tumbled down below, sent sprawling on the ground. Peta jumped down after them. 

From there, the battle commenced – to the _death._

Spider-Man fought with Iron Man at her back, enduring Captain America's hard blows while Mr. Stark sought to assassinate the assassinator. This whole situation had her overloaded, with no clear path forward. No matter what she did – what any of them did – they were all still losing. 

Peta split her concentration, devoting half of her senses to monitoring the assault behind her. She ached to stop him; to help him, but Captain America showed no signs of relinquishing his attack, and she amped up her own powers, no longer pulling her punches quite so much, trying to subdue the man. All she could do was trust Mr. Stark; hope that he would come to his senses before it was too late. 

It wasn't easy living with the blame; the guilt of murdering for the sake of retribution. Experience dictated that fact; _Peta's_ experience. 

Suddenly, her senses went into overdrive. Mr. Stark activated the unibeam, and almost killed Sergeant Barnes. She took her eye off the ball, dread like water in her system, and Captain Rogers smashed his shield into her temple. Her vision tunnelled, greyed, and she collapsed, blissfully unconscious.

* * *

She awoke to her head drumming to a fast heartbeat. Her senses were out of whack, trying to stabilise. Mr. Stark's presence gradually filtered into the background, his rapid heartbeat pulsing alongside her own. His breaths were unequal. 

Apart from him, there was no one else there.

Peta forced herself to a sitting position. “Oh, God,” Peta groaned. “I'm going to get a concussion. I can feel it.” Captain freakin' America had bruised her brain – how the hell was that her life? Oh, that's right: Parker Luck. 

Mr. Stark did not reply. Turning to observe him, she found a broken shell in place of the proud Iron Man armour – trapped in the remnants of incandescent rage, burgeoning him with a strength he could not match. The white-hot centre of the suit was disfigured; a black hole where his heart should be. 

“Kid,” he hissed, low and dangerous, reared like a snake prepared to bite at any second. “Get me out of this.”

Obediently, Peta scrambled to her feet, and dashed over to where he lay, unable to move. She searched for some kind of release hatch. “How do I–”

“Just rip it. Get me out of this,” he repeated, voice strained. It didn't escape her notice that his breathing was becoming choppy. “Kid, get me out of this. I need to get out.”

“Okay,” she whispered, mainly to herself. Mentally saying _screw_ _it_ , Peta latched her hands on to the cold, unyielding metal and tore the Iron Man armour apart, piece by piece. Her spidery-influenced skin stuck on like a limpet at her command, her strength never failing. 

Mr. Stark jumped out of the suit the minute he was able, a nimbleness normally reserved for her. He got to his feet, unsteady, and she let a breathy yelp as he almost toppled to the floor. She attached herself to him, holding him upright. The contact lasted less than a second before he pushed her away. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

A snappy nod was the only answer she received, eyes staring anywhere but at her. As though he were afraid to let her see him in such a vulnerable state. 

Peta could empathise with that. 

“F.R.I. should have sent assistance by now,” Mr. Stark muttered. “Shouldn't be too long.”

Peta nodded. She didn't think Mr. Stark needed a reciprocation. Instead, she shadowed him as they moved back to the undamaged part of the bunker. He pulled wires out of sockets, finger-painting a trinket from scratch. Less than scratch. 

It took her tired mind a while to comprehend what he was doing, and then it struck her – he was making a heater. Although, Peta didn't really have a need for one, considering her lack of thermoregulation. Nevertheless, she lent him a wordless helping hand. It didn't take them long to finish, Mr. Stark doing the brunt of the labour. He held it out to her, and she shook her head.

“Kid,” Mr. Stark interrupted in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “You're not even shivering. You need this more than I.”

“Oh, I'm cold-blooded. Like: literally cold-blooded. I don't shiver; don't sweat. My thermoregulation is the equivalent to an insect,” she needlessly explained, going off on a slight tangent that she should probably reign in. “On the plus side, I can survive in colder temperatures like this one, and I'm pretty sure I can't get hypothermic.” At least, not in the same way a full-blooded human would. 

Mr. Stark, who had mentally checked out during her rambling, nodded at her final statement. Acquiescing, he took their makeshift heater. 

Spiders had enough antifreeze in their blood to easily survive at 23°F. See, everyone discounted arachnids. Spiders – especially jumping spiders, the species that was responsible for her DNA mutation – were highly adaptable creatures. Adversity did not daunt them. One such type of jumping spider, _Euophrys_ _omnisuperstes_ , can actually survive on the slopes of Mount Everest; the highest known permanent residence on Earth. 

Literal translation: _standing_ _above_ _everything_. 

Not to sound like she was mooching off the achievements of others, but Peta liked to believe that she was of that same calibre. 

Sometimes. 

However, this occasion was not one of those ‘sometimes’.

She couldn't figure out what to say, how to say it. Mr. Stark's life had been flipped upside down; everything he thought he knew was a lie – a lie perpetuated by America's biggest boy scout. There was no precedent for a situation like this. Peta didn't have a manual to flick through detailing what she should do, what she should say. Anything she thought of, she just as quickly vetoed. 

So, they sat and waited, solitude their invisible companion. 

* * *

Mr. Stark's A.I. found them within the hour, Happy in tow. He ushered Mr. Stark into the quinjet, Peta slowly echoing his footsteps. The doctor that diagnosed Colonel Rhodes with his spinal trauma was on board, and Happy pawned him off to her. 

Not a word was spoken between them. The betrayal, lies and deceit were inscribed all over their faces, marking them forever. 

Peta politely refused any medical treatment – and not just because she had virtually no healthcare insurance either. She was content to simply sit with her mind in turmoil, and when Mr. Stark requested her be sent back to Massachusetts, Peta obeyed without question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She gestured around. “That's why I do this. Spider-Man. It's to make up for everything I did that day. It's not all out of the,” she flashed a lopsided smile, “goodness of my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! :) I cannot tell you how great it feels to finally be back and writing again. I am so so sorry I haven't published anything in nearly three months. I literally have no excuses except life, and I kind of became disillusioned in everything. But I promise you that I am back now, and I will definitely be finishing this story! 
> 
> I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to read all your comments, and see all your kudos and bookmarks. They honestly were the best part of every day. Thank you all so much for being amazing! <3 
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter. (Oh, and I probably should mention that I used the Tobey Maguire version of Uncle Ben's death for this story, since the MCU doesn't have an official story for it.) 
> 
> Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!

Her concussion formally presented itself three days after the initial injury, much to her displeasure. In her experience, her concussions lasted from anywhere between five hours and five days, so. This was going to be a fun ride.  
  
(Yes, it probably would help if she sought actual medical advice, like Mr. Stark's highly-qualified doctor. But she had a rule about people touching her head. And– it wasn't that bad anyway. She had survived a hell of a lot worse.)  
  
Ned, bless him, monitored her throughout, short of actually checking her head, although his concern was kind of a moot point. She'd never sustained a permanent injury since the spider bite, maybe she never could. Still, his help was very much appreciated – especially when he took it upon himself to attend her lectures and record notes for her before their June exams hit.  
  
She really did not deserve him as her best friend.  
  
In the interim, rest and recuperation was all she could manage. To put it in other words: all she could do was lie in the bed she made, and think about everything that just happened with Mr. Stark and the Avengers and Siberia.  
  
And her alter ego.  
  
It was a weird old life, living a lie. Her brief, ephemeral resurrection as Spider-Man had rejuvenated her. The inertia that once dominated her actions was beginning to thaw, giving way to the rising fire. Truth be told: she _missed_ it. Constantly. Even when she was technically estranged from her alter ego, she still missed it. Swinging from building to building, beating up criminals, defending her city. Not even the laws of gravity could dissuade her as she swung her weight around.  
  
The essence of Spider-Man's fighting style could be boiled down to: _float like a butterfly, sting like a bee._ Only she didn't do much floating or stinging on her consecutive trips to Berlin and Siberia.  
  
Anyway. At the end of the day, the sum total of Peta's introspection was a string of self-damning hypotheticals. That was literally _all_ it amounted to, while she lay in bed with a temporary brain injury.

* * *

She wasn't alone with her thoughts for too long, though.  
  
“Kid,” Mr. Stark said sometime around the fifteen-hour mark, looking far older than she had ever seen him. “Is this your MIT dorm? Have to tell you, it could use a little dusting.”  
  
“Mr. Stark?” she slurred, unable to get the syllables obey. “What you doin' here?”  
  
Interestingly, his expression became noticeably strained, and that was when she understood.  
  
“Ah,” she said. “You're not really here.”  
  
He opened his mouth as if to refute to claim, but after a moment's deliberation, he remained silent, something like guilt colouring his face.  
  
“How are you?” he said instead, ignoring the reality of their situation.  
  
“I'm good. Wish your dad had decided against building a vibranium Frisbee, though.”  
  
Mr. Stark smiled. Belatedly, she realised that she probably shouldn't have brought up his dead parents so soon after Siberia, even to a mere concussed hallucination of the man.  
  
“Sorry,” she added.  
  
He held up his hands. “No, no. It's fine.”  
  
Huh. Imaginary Mr. Stark was a lot more receptive to her stupid jokes than real Mr. Stark. _Interesting._  
  
He sat down on the edge of the bed, just barely touching where she lay beneath the covers.  
  
“I'm cracking time travel.” She had to think back to the question she asked.  
  
“Time travel?” she repeated like a certifiable idiot.  
  
Her older Mr. Stark laughed at her reaction. “Yep. Time travel.”  
  
This was one of the weirdest things her brain had conjured up. Still, she played along. “You're cracking time travel... and you came to visit me?”  
  
Whatever response she was expecting, it certainly wasn't a sobered Mr. Stark looking down at her prone body like she was something worth looking at.  
  
(Hang on. That must be her own crush bleeding through. Never mind.)  
  
“Yes,” he whispered. His hand brushed the hair off her forehead. “I came back to you. And to give you this.”  
  
He removed his hand from her head, digging out something from his inside pocket. It looked like a tiny memory stick.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Information,” was all he said. “About the future.”  
  
Peta snorted. “Okay, Kyle Reese. That's not at all unnerving.”  
  
Mr. Stark did chuckle at her pitiful attempt at humour, but like before, there was something lacking. Like there was something he wasn't telling her.  
  
“You won't be able to access it yet,” he explained, twiddling the tiny stick between his fingers. “I haven't invented the technology yet. But in a few months’ time I will have, and I'll need you to give me this. And I'm going to need you to tell me something as well when you give me this,” – and he whispered the question to her.  
  
“Well, if you know you'll have invented the technology in a few months’ time, why didn't you just go there instead of being stuck with me?”  
  
His brown eyes snapped to hers, all haunting and fragile and vulnerable – and _allowing_ her to see him like that. It took her breath away. “Because there's no one I trust more than you. Not even myself. And I– I wanted to see you again. Before.”  
  
Peta didn't know what to say to that. She blamed her brain – and she was very particular about her brain at the best of times.  
  
“And you want me to ask you how you survived New York?” she said instead, venturing back on (kind of) familiar territory.  
  
“No, well, yes, but with these exact words.” He bent down to whisper the question in her ear, and all she could think was how realistic this felt for an auditory, visual and tactile hallucination.  
  
She repeated the question back to him at his request, and Mr. Stark smiled warmly.  
  
“Good. Just remember those words. Promise me.”  
  
Perplexed, she promised with a smile. Mr. Stark softened whole-heartedly, and he placed the weird looking memory stick that apparently held the key to the universe in the pocket of her least favourite jacket.

When he made as though to disappear back, she reached out.  
  
“Will you stay?” she murmured drowsily, sleep overtaking her with sudden ferocity. Ordinarily, she would never be so forward, but given that this man was a figment of her imagination, she reckoned she was in safe hands.  
  
And, true to her imagination, Mr. Stark stayed with her, cradling her to his chest, fingers playing with her hair in a manner she never thought could feel so good.  
  
And thirty-one hours later, her concussion was nothing more than a distant memory of an unforgettable encounter.

But boy oh boy, that was such a strange hallucination.

* * *

Fast-forward a couple weeks. Peta and Ned had just wrapped up their exams, and had started preparing to return home for the summer break.  
  
Mr. Stark forwarded an email to her. From Secretary Ross.  
  
 **re: Avengers Internship.**  
  
 **Peta's heart stuttered once and then keeled over – DNR: Do Not Resuscitate.**  
  
When she finally pulled herself together, she read over the brief proposal Ross had put together. It was basically just a rehash of everything they had discussed when Peta had been stalling him before.  
  
Attached at the bottom was a little note:  
  
 _I can make this go away, if you want. – T.S._  
  
Right.  
  
Peta, a notorious dumpster-diver, did not possess the tools to decrypt Mr. Stark's words. She had found that out the hard way – the ghost of Siberia looming over her every move. _Did_ she want this to go away? Yes... no.  
  
Fuck. _I don't know._  
  
Ambition, that little devil on her shoulder, whispered its tune in her ear; a misshapen, twisted demon. But her sense of duty, of responsibility – of knowing _when_ to fight; when _not_ to fight – urged her to turn down the Avengers. Funny, that latter voice belonged to Uncle Ben.  
  
In her youth, she struggled with balancing Spider-Man and Peta Parker; contrasting the simple life she desired and the adventure she craved. Nowadays, more than anything, she feared upsetting that balancing. Accepting Mr. Stark's offer, having Spider-Man become an intern for the Avengers – she feared she would lose Peta Parker once more, the innate personality she fought hard to preserve in her alter-ego's absence. She was ever so cognizant of the fractious relationship of power and responsibility, and she never wanted to lose sight of it.  
  
So, the question remained: did she want to go back – not as a one-off, not as a favour to an old hero – but for _her?_  
  
She didn't know.  
  
Sure, she _could_ do it. Theoretically. Kind of. The logistics would be tricky, but she could do it. Obviously, she'd have to sacrifice some part of her life – whether that's MIT or her weekends or her (non-existent) social life. Hell, or maybe she could transfer to another college altogether. Well, that was if she hadn't completely tanked her first-year exams. She could probably go to one in New York. NYU or even Empire State?  
  
Woah, back up. She was getting ahead of herself, there.  
  
This internship would give Spider-Man wings. Spider-Man could fly with this internship, build her up, and make it so that she could go at it solo with far more confidence and experience and training than she had back when she was all of fourteen. And still she _feared–_  
  
In other words: Peta was Icarus, and Mr. Stark was the sun. Get too close and _sayonara_ , wings _._  
  
Peta would not survive another catastrophe. She wasn't strong enough.  
  
Historically, Peta was a loner, a maverick. She wasn't the type to play with others – the Clash of the Avengers notwithstanding. Accepting this certified _internship_ would go against every fibre of her being. Right at the very start, she'd established her reputation as an _independent_ superhero. Spiders didn't do well when left in prolonged contact with others. More to the point: what if she didn't get along with the others? What if she couldn't find it within herself to trust them? What if she let them down?  
  
 _What if–_  
  
 _What if–_  
  
 _What if–_

No. Okay? _No._ She owed this to Uncle Ben, to Queens, to the Avengers – maybe even to herself. She _had_ to do this. She had to return. She didn’t have a choice. She’d transfer from MIT if she had to. Empire State was a great college in New York. Peta would be lucky to graduate from there.

She just– she couldn’t hide anymore. She was done with that.  
  
Well. That was settled, then. Turns out she didn't need much convincing. _You get the best of both worlds_ , Peta's mind sang. What? She was a big _Hannah Montana_ fan back in the good old days. Maybe she could handle it.

* * *

After his initial comment, Mr. Stark had not directly contacted her regarding the internship. In his stead, her primary correspondent was, surprisingly, Happy, with the occasional input from Colonel Rhodes and Vision. In hindsight, maybe it wasn't so strange – the ramifications of the Avengers' civil war went far beyond petty grievances, and the survivors were still dealing with the fallout.  
  
Maybe that was why Mr. Stark had also given her an out. Maybe he wanted her to take it – to not have to look at the person who was with him when he learned a terrible, awful truth.  
  
...or maybe Peta was just overthinking it. Her favourite pastime, that was.  
  
As fate would have it, Aunt May rang Peta that night.  
  
“I'm just checking in,” May said in place of a greeting. Through her aunt's phone, Peta could place the faint sound of something burning. It was gratifying to know that, in the face of an overwhelming number of odd occurrences these past few days – well, past few years, if she were being perfectly honest – some things just never changed. “I wanted to make sure you were alright.”  
  
Peta's smile was in the presence of solitude alone. “I'm doing good thanks, May.”  
  
“I heard on the news that Tony Stark gave a speech there a month ago,” May probed. She never was one for subtlety. “Apparently, he even made every student a recipient of a grant.” She paused. “You never told me that.”  
  
In Peta's defence, she had been a little busy at the time – getting interrogated by the man. The month after had just been her trying to process. Even now, she was still trying to process.  
  
“Sorry, May,” was all she said, genuine regret spilling from her lips – not just for this particular omission, but for all the lies she had told over the years, too numerous to recount. “I've been a little busy.”  
  
“Uh-huh.” May didn't sound convinced. Thankfully, she didn't press the topic. “So, when are you coming home?”  
  
Peta breathed a silent prayer of relief, and took to answering her dear aunt's questions as she made preparations to return to Queens.

* * *

“I don't want to exsanguinate,” she said later, perching on the corner of Ned's bed at two in the morning after having spent several hours – that really should have been spent revising – trying and failing to come to a decision.  
  
“What?” Her Guy in the Chair shot up in bed, hair a terrible bird's nest, searching her for fatal wounds. Which, yeah, wasn't completely ludicrous. It's happened before.  
  
“’cause I could, y'know,” she said, carrying on as though he hadn't spoken, eyes trained on the wall in front, lost in stream of consciousness. “I could just bleed out; my vessels could haemorrhage, and then I would be empty. Devoid of blood. Of life.”  
  
“Oh. This is a metaphor.” Ned yawned, flopping back on the bed. “I'm with you now.” He made a half-hearted gesture. “Continue.”  
  
Peta exhaled sharply. “What if this is a bad idea, moving back to New York? You said it yourself: I'd be just another college dropout chasing after some stupid fantasy.”  
  
“Okay, first: you said Empire State would accept you, and _nobody_ just gets accepted there after transferring as late as you did, and second: what fantasy would you be chasing after?”  
  
Peta smiled crookedly down at him. “Being the Amazing Spider-Man.”  
  
Ever since facing the fractured Avengers, she had been struck by the knowledge that she was little more than a freshly-hatched sea turtle, sprinting on land that she was not acclimatised for, desperately trying to make it to the sea before being cruelly snatched in life's great game.  
  
(Okay, her analogy was a tad morbid, but nonetheless viable.)  
  
Ned thumped her arm. “C'mon. Where's the hero who stopped a moving train? You can't give up now!”  
  
Peta rubbed the spot his fist hit. “I'm not that hero anymore.”  
  
“That's not true–”  
  
“No, it _is_ true,” she retorted strongly. “You don't know, Ned. You weren't there. I couldn't save Uncle Ben, I killed Gwen, I couldn't help Mr. Stark. I'm not a hero.” Frustration bubbled in her throat, upsetting her vocal cords. “I've never been a hero.”  
  
Chagrined, he dropped his eyes. Peta instantly regretted her outburst.  
  
“Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing,” she muttered, eyes glued to her lap.  
  
Ned was silent for a moment. “But maybe sometimes you don't have to know. All you have to do is... _do._ And then the knowledge comes later.”  
  
Peta side-eyed him. “Did you just make that up?”  
  
“No.” A beat. “Yes. But, still.” He looked her in the eyes, as serious as she had ever seen him. “If anyone can do it, Peta. You can.”

* * *

May's grin was the largest it had ever been when Peta stepped off the train – she had scrounged together enough change to get the train instead of the bus, making it a little easier to get some sleep.  
  
“I'm so glad to see you,” May murmured as she threw her arms around her. “I've missed you so much.”  
  
Peta almost wanted to cry. “I've missed you, too, May. So much.”  
  
“So,” May said as she released her, mischief in her smile. “I want to hear all about your life with all the other geniuses.”  
  
Shaking her head, Peta looped her arm in May's and gave her every measly scrap of gossip she had.

* * *

Her first weekend to the infamous Avengers Compound was nothing like she imagined it would be. (She had informed May that she would be spending the weekend with Ned so as to avoid any confusion and keep up the charade.)  
  
For starters, Mr. Stark was nowhere to be seen. Not that she was expecting him – not really anyway. Colonel Rhodes was also absent on her arrival, and even Happy went and ditched her not a second after he'd performed his chauffeur duties to the highest calibre.  
  
At least she had Vision to keep her company, giving her an expert tour of the building.  
  
“Hey, uh, Vision?”  
  
He glanced back with all the grace of an augmented human, poised to perfection. “Yes, Ms. Parker?”  
  
“Do you know where Mr. Stark is? It's just– I want to thank him. For letting me stay here, and for giving me this second chance.”  
  
“Mr. Stark has requested that he not be disturbed.”  
  
“Oh,” Peta said lamely. Really, what had she been expecting? The hallucination was one thing – a stupid little concussed daydream – but actually expecting her hero to give her the time of day unprompted? Yeah, that just didn't happen. “Of course.”  
  
“I'll pass it on,” was all Vision said before swiftly moving on.  
  
That interaction was a particular highlight of the tour.  
  
Eventually, they came to a stop outside a door.  
  
Vision looked expectantly at her. “This is you.”  
  
Her room. The room of Peta Parker– no. The room of _Spider-Man._ Peta was just the vessel the Web-head sequestered himself in.  
  
Her room was, quite simply, gorgeous – erring on the side of minimalism yet still managing to be extravagant in its simplicity. In short: the perfect home for her.  
  
She wasn't worthy of it.  
  
In an attempt to detract from the obvious case of imposter syndrome, Peta concentrated her attention on the piece of paper on the bedside table.  
  
Peta frowned. “What's this?”  
  
Vision explained, “As you have not yet signed the Accords, you are not a member of the Avengers, so you will not receive a superhero's salary. However, Mr. Stark felt that you were deserving of a monthly wage befitting an Avenger, considering all that you do.” He nodded at the paper. “This is a contract of sorts. A promise, as Mr. Stark deemed it.”  
  
Peta squared her shoulders, jaw jutting forward of its own accord. Pity was the one thing guaranteed to set her teeth on edge no matter what. “Please tell Mr. Stark I do not accept his charity,” she said. “I can get my old job back. I don't need a salary.”  
  
Vision frowned. “Pardon me, Ms. Parker, but if the job in question has J. Jonah Jameson as your employer, then may I enquire as to why you would chose to sell pictures of yourself to a newspaper that considers your extra-curricular activities a public menace?”  
  
Wow. That was a long-winded question. Peta was mildly impressed – Vision did not inhale once. Although, he did make her sound like she was Spider-Man's glorified pimp, which, well was not too much of a stretch, she supposed.  
  
But Peta just– couldn't accept the money. No way. Being Spider-Man wasn't a _job_. She didn't go out and protect her childhood neighbourhood for any kind of monetary perks. Accepting Mr. Stark's offer of payment just felt wrong. Like, icky. The money was encroaching on a mouth-watering _six-figure sum._ That was a ludicrous amount of money; more money than she had ever seen in her entire life. Peta would feel tremendous guilt were she to accept it. Especially when homelessness and unemployment rates were on the rise in the very city she strove to defend.  
  
“I can't accept this,” she said, firmer this time. “Please thank Mr. Stark for the offer.”  
  
“If it's any consolation,” Vision continued, ignorant of her internal dilemma. “Before he was Iron Man, Mr. Stark would waste millions of dollars in casinos.”  
  
Shockingly, it was no consolation.  
  
But Vision wasn't finished. “I would imagine that this, in comparison, is little more than pocket change.”  
  
 _Pocket change._ Sounds about right.  
  
“I insist,” Peta pressed as kindly as she could until Vision had no choice but to take it back on his maker's behalf.  
  
“Very well.” He tilted his head back in the direction of the kitchen. “Care for some dinner?”  
  
Peta mustered a smile. “You cook?”  
  
“Not well. But I was thinking more along the lines of simply ordering.” He paused. “How do you feel about Chinese?”  
  
Reeling from this entire day, Peta simply smiled and said, “Chinese would be amazing, thank you.”

* * *

At three in the morning, there was a muffled clang.  
  
Peta hadn't been able to sleep. She never could when someplace new. After debating for half a second, she got herself out of bed, dressed only in pyjamas, and headed to the source of the commotion.  
  
It didn't take her long to find it.  
  
Mr. Stark's private lab; door nudged open only slightly.  
  
Peta went inside.  
  
Let her paint the picture: liquor bottles littered Mr. Stark's workstation, each in varying states of emptiness, surrounded by broken fragments of the red-and-gold Iron Man armour. There, at the centre, Mr. Stark was slouched in the chair, his hands shaking around a drink he clutched as a lifeline.  
  
Mr. Stark's glass was half empty.  
  
“Pretty sure I locked that,” he slurred into his drink, waving at the door.  
  
Peta mustered a resoundingly smile. “‘Fraid not.”  
  
Mr. Stark did not enjoy her pitiful attempt at humour. Unnervingly still, he made no attempt to continue the conversation. He didn't even blink; his eyes still staring at her.  
  
“What are you doing?” she chanced.  
  
“I was going to fix the armour you destroyed, but–” He held out his hands, and Peta didn't need enhanced senses to see how terribly they were shaking. “Seems drinking would be a better use of my time.”  
  
Ah. Right.  
  
"Hey," his arms gesticulated, wide and inviting, juxtaposed against the harsh, brutally uncompromising tone of his. “I have a predisposition towards dogmatism, I'll be the first to admit.”  
  
Peta marvelled at the fact that his ability to talk in complete, complex sentences had not been hindered in any way by the copious amounts of alcohol he'd drunk. This wasn't the man all the tabloids gushed over, nor was it the person who revolutionised what it meant to be a superhero. Peta recognised the display for what it was: anguish. A wounded animal lashing out, biting the hand that cares.  
  
“C'mon,” Mr. Stark pressed, suddenly changing the subject, venom imbuing his tongue; eyes hard and cold as they bored into hers. “Orphan to orphan. Enlighten me: how the hell are you so okay with HYDRA? How the hell do you have the absolute _audacity_ to condemn _me_ for avenging my mother's death, when your own parents had their murder covered up by HYDRA?” Then he smirked, dark, and said, “Ever think we should start a support group? Children of HYDRA Victims Unite?”  
  
Peta had been sweet sixteen when Natasha Romanoff leaked the corrupted S.H.I.E.L.D. files. Uncle Ben had gone to the grave believing his brother and sister-in-law were traitors, betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. and aligning with HYDRA.  
  
It was all a ruse; a trick.  
  
But her parents were found out. Their plane – tampered with, crashed. Bodies never to be recovered. Peta was only four.  
  
“There Cap was. There you are–” he gestured over to her, careless – “becoming a superhero at an age where I still had a nanny.”  
  
Lacking an appropriate response, all she could do was smile weakly.  
  
“You and Cap – always self-righteous,” Mr. Stark continued bitterly, swirling amber liquor in his tumbler, derisive scowl painting the harsh lines of his face an ugly shade. “Always so quick to defend _the little guys_.” He concluded his acrimonious lecture with a swig of his drink. He didn't even flinch at the no doubt harsh burn. “And me? I'm a big guy. I've been fighting my own battles since I was three years old. I can see that's not about to change now.”  
  
His sudden turn to bitterness didn't surprise her; Spider-Man been on the receiving end of more than enough drunken rants. And considering what had just happened to him... well, he didn't need a lecture.  
  
“ _In vino veritas_ ,” he declared, manic sneer biting into his face, laughing at nothing.  
  
“You have no idea what it is to be shot by a weapon of your making,” Mr. Stark suddenly hissed, vitriol poisoning his words. Whiskey submerged his breath, so strong Peta stifled the impulse to gag. “Because _if you_ _did_ , you would think twice before judging me.”  
  
Luckily, Peta was fully armed to defend herself against Mr. Stark's inebriated, unintelligible ad hominem attacks.  
  
“I'm not judging you,” she protested quietly, making sure to look as sincere as she felt. Because she really wasn't; she was the absolute last person who would ever judge him.  
  
“Please,” he refuted, rolling his eyes. Webs of red bled into the whites of Mr. Stark's eyes. “Of course you are.” Self-deprecatingly, he added, “You should be.”  
  
He stood on unsteady legs, refilling his empty glass with what would probably amount to dangerous amounts of alcohol.  
  
“You're selfless,” he spat, and it didn't sound like a compliment.  
  
He must have read the argument on her face for he scoffed and simply said, “Even Cap got a salary; you don't even want that.”  
  
Oh. So, he knew about this morning, then.  
  
Lowly, she said, “That doesn't make me selfless. Trust me.”  
  
Mr. Stark took the challenge, retrieved the fallen gauntlet and summoned her to fulfil her oath. “Come on, then,” he gestured wide, returning to his side. She could hear the ice smash against the glass. “Give me your worst war story. Lay it on me.”  
  
Peta took a seat and did as she was told.  
  
She took a breath, unable to believe that she was about to divulge her worst act – the birth of Spider-Man. “Two weeks after I got my powers, I saw an ad for an underground fighting club. It was, um, three grand if you pin your opponent in three minutes.” A woefully wistful smile painted her face, the memory still raw in her mind; a scab she would never let heal. “I pinned mine in two.”  
  
“Kid, if that's your idea of commiseration, then–”  
  
“But because I pinned mine in two,” Peta continued, steamrolling over Mr. Stark's condescension. “I was stiffed out of the three grand. And I was so pissed, that when I heard the burglar steal what should have been _my_ money at gunpoint – I let him escape.” It would always be her greatest crime. “I tell myself now that, if I wasn't slighted, I wouldn't have done that; I would have stopped him.” She took a breath, readying herself for a confession she'd never dared utter to another living soul before: “But, to be honest, I don't think I would. Back then, that was a job for other people. Better people. Heroes. Like Captain America or Iron Man,” she gestured toward Mr. Stark with a sardonic grin in tow. “Not a job for me, y'know? It wasn't _my_ responsibility to care.” A pause. “But I did know about the gun, and I did know that it was loaded. That part _is_ on me.”  
  
Pensive now, Mr. Stark simply listened, tumbler perched dangerously on his thigh.  
  
Peta collected herself. “Anyway. _After_ I let him go, I went outside – and, uh, there was a big crowd of people on the sidewalk.” She averted her eyes, lost in the nebulous haze of her worst memory. “I pushed through, and my uncle was on the floor.”  
  
The dregs of his smirk faded from Mr. Stark's face, as it had done to the nascent Peta four years prior.  
  
“He'd been carjacked. Shot. While I was busy arguing about _money,”_ God, even now, she laughed at the absurdity of it all. “And he died right in front of me.”  
  
The red flush drained from Mr. Stark's face.  
  
In her dreams, Uncle Ben was always bleeding.  
  
“I overheard where the suspect was on the police radio, and without even thinking about it, I chased after him myself. I, uh, hadn't perfected my web fluid yet,” she added, feeling the need to clarify, to paint the scene of the crime, “so I was just hopping along the roof of all these cars, trying to chase him down, corner him. And I did. He crashed my uncle's car right into this old, derelict building.” She remembered thinking: _bingo!_ “I ran on in after him.”  
  
He had looked so frightened of her; so terrified – and all it did was enrage her further, imagining Uncle Ben looking the same to his killer.  
  
“I broke his arm. A little out of self-defence, but mostly just 'cause I could, and because it felt good to hurt him.” Her fingernails were suddenly the most interesting thing in the universe as she evaded Mr. Stark's gaze. “I just– I had all this anger and nothing to do with it. It had to go somewhere. I didn't want it.”  
  
A lump lodged itself in her windpipe, willing her not to reveal the part she played in the tragedy. “But then I saw his face,” she forced out, voice smaller than she thought possible. “And I recognised it... as the thief I _let go_ because I was annoyed.” There was no one left to blame but herself. “I was an accessory to my uncle's murder.”  
  
Peta shook her head, finally daring to look Mr. Stark in the eye, witness the judgement first hand.  
  
“My name might not have been on the gun, but I made it possible for him to kill my uncle. I set the scene perfectly,” Peta chuckled bitterly, lost in the memory. Blood staining her clothes, gunpowder in her mouth – acrid. She shook her head, banishing the painful memories to the back of her subconscious where they lived, infiltrating her thought processes. “My point is: I know what it's like to be morally responsible for something terrible.”  
  
She gestured around. “That's why I do this. Spider-Man. It's to make up for everything I did that day. It's not all out of the,” she flashed a lopsided smile, “goodness of my heart.”  
  
Mr. Stark was frozen.  
  
Back then, she had allowed selfishness to cloud her judgement – a bitter, parasitic greed that infected her every thought, any shred of decency that she had before had been eradicated.  
  
Uncle Ben paid the price.  
  
Now, Peta strived to become self _less_. To become the hero Uncle Ben deserved. The kind who wasn't an accessory to petty crime to spite others.  
  
“I'm a hero _now_... because I wasn't _then._ And I get it wrong sometimes.” _Gwen_. “Most of the time. But– you gotta keep trying, right?”  
  
Mr. Stark seemed to take in her words. As for Peta, she was lost in the haze of remembrance.  
  
 _Peta, these are the years when a person changes into the person they're going to be for the rest of their life. Just be careful who you change into._  
  
It was then that she realised she had basically spewed her life story at the man. Embarrassment flooded her body.  
  
“I'm sorry,” she announced suddenly, eyes wide. “I have a tendency to talk _a lot_ when I'm nervous,” – and, well, Mr. Stark certainly made her nervous.  
  
To her gratitude, Mr. Stark simply shrugged a shoulder half-heartedly. “Don't sweat it, kid. Haven't been lectured like that since MIT.”  
  
Humiliation coloured her face.  
  
Mr. Stark waved off her embarrassment. “I was long overdue for one.”  
  
Peta saw the tumbler on his leg, full with amber whiskey, and without rational thought, she acted on impulse.  
  
Mr. Stark watched her, looked up at her, unblinking, a fragility the likes of which she had never seen before in his dark eyes. One misstep and she feared he would shatter.  
  
Gently, she took the glass of scotch from his hand, which had grown lax. He offered no resistance.  
  
She raised it to her lips, and downed it in one.  
  
... and really wished she hadn't.  
  
“I can't believe you drink this,” Peta said, gagging on the taste.  
  
Mr. Stark chuckled low, the reverberations shooting through Peta like lightning. “It's a demon in a bottle.”  
  
Her tale had one piece missing: the part where she got home that night, hands the colour of drying blood; Iron Man poster staring at her from across her room. For the first time in her life, she felt like she finally understood him. Why he did what he did. Who he was behind the armour – just a man desperately trying to make amends. There, Tony Stark stood and there stood the Merchant of Death, her messiah in red-and-gold, telling a fourteen-year-old kid from Queens that it wasn't too late.  
  
Peta's face flushed at the prospect of sharing that. Some things were better kept unsaid.  
  
Shaking off the memory, she said, “I can't bring my uncle back to life, I can't go back and save Gwen, I can't fix Iron Man for you – but what I can do is keep your hands steady, so that _you_ can fix it.” She extended a hand down to her hero. There was something to be said for liquid courage.  
  
It came as a great surprise to her when Mr. Stark placed his callused palm in her hand, and allowed himself to be gently pulled to his feet.  
  
“Isn't this the part where you give me the alcoholism speech?” Mr. Stark slurred, swaying unsteadily as he clambered to his full height, Peta's arms outstretched to catch him if he fell.  
  
“Nah,” she said with a lightness she didn't feel. “I'm pretty sure you already know all that off by heart.”  
  
Mr. Stark shrugged as best he could.  
  
“This doesn't mean I trust you,” he said soberly. It was perhaps the most serious he'd been all night.  
  
“I know,” she replied, because she did. Then, with a newfound mischievousness partly born at how heavy the conversation had suddenly turned, she added, “Don't worry, I'll win you over with my super-secret master plan.”  
  
Mr. Stark's huffed. “Master plan, eh, kid?”  
  
For a weird moment, she thought back to the older, greying image of her hallucination – his warm, implicit trust and the way he looked at her.  
  
“Yeah,” she found herself saying. It was her turn to steady herself. Gesturing to the broken Iron Man suit, she said, “Where do we start?”

* * *

After that, she didn't see Tony Stark for two months.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for reading :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Just An Ordinary Teen, Probably.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28506462) by [EmilyJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyJ/pseuds/EmilyJ)




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